On the topic of Fox/Falco hate

[1MachGO]

Is it just me, or is the anti-fox/falco sentiment on these boards stronger than it is on the melee ones? Considering that the latter is the game where Fox and Falco are (with certainty) leagues above many of the games' low tiers, it would seem more appropriate that people wouldn't complain about them as much as they do.

I am of course not trying to deny that Fox and Falco are amazing characters with a plethora of effective options, but I would contend that they are less potent in Project: M than they were in Melee. Not because they were nerfed, but because a lot of the cast was buffed. I remember back on Smashmods when Shadic concisely commented on the matter, saying something along the lines of Fox and Falco now have a whole, new, more viable cast with closer MUs to fight.

The neglect of such concepts is also ironic when you wind back the clock to the pre-smashmods days where a fair portion of people were complaining about characters being almost entirely balanced based on anti-spacie tools. Whether you were part of that camp or not, those who have been lurking as long as I have know what I mean.

So why all the hate? Fox and Falco are certainly villains, but they aren't villains like Metaknight from Brawl or Magneto/Storm/Sentinel from MvC2 where they are simultaneously incredible characters but also win seemingly everything. Compared to the top tiers of other games they seem much more beatable. I would actually be willing to bet that more low-tier mains in Melee are comfortable with the Fox MU than they are with the Sheik MU.

So does anyone else notice this trend and feel that while it does have merit in the claim that Fox and Falco are really good, it is unecessary to complain about them as much as people feel the need they have to?

 

[ELI-mination]

This should probably be locked before I start posting in here

 

[Ace55]

There is more hate because in PM it's something that could possibly change. People tend to complain a lot more when they think it could make a difference. Imagine if the PMBR would have designed ntsc melee Sheik as a brand new character in PM, people would rage until she was nerfed. In melee people (rightfully) complain about it but since it can't be changed outside of banning the character they move on, master the matchup and/or stop playing the 80% of the cast that gets destroyed by her.

For the record, I don't want the spacees to be changed at all, especially not this early in the metagame. I wouldn't be surprised if other characters end up surpassing them in the long run, even in the current build.

 

[GaretHax]

There is more hate because in PM it's something that could possibly change. People tend to complain a lot more when they think it could make a difference. Imagine if the PMBR would have designed ntsc melee Sheik as a brand new character in PM, people would rage until she was nerfed. In melee people (rightfully) complain about it but since it can't be changed outside of banning the character they move on, master the matchup and/or stop playing the 80% of the cast that gets destroyed by her.

For the record, I don't want the spacees to be changed at all, especially not this early in the metagame. I wouldn't be surprised if other characters end up surpassing them in the long run, even in the current build.

Yup, literally just yup. Besides Falco is the only one I would examine (maybe sheik which they kinda did already) for imbalance... Especially since Nationals and big tournies only really see one space aninal (Falco) winning. But then you get nationals skewed by Peach which leads to my feeling that characters like shiek, peach, jiggs and maybe even Falco are dominating because of the players, not the characters, (armada, pp, hbox/mangox10). But along this line of logic there are alot of really damn good Fox's too. I honestly think Fox is too inconsistent and demanding to be successful in Melee's new, more defensive, Meta and in all likelihood won't do much better in PM.

 

[Kink-Link5]

When you're character's flaw is "Human error means you'll hopefully **** up with them," there's something inherently goofy about their design.

People don't complain on the Melee boards because Melee isn't a mod subject to change.

That being said, I'd be perfectly fine if either the case where they were made to have actual character flaws, or other characters were made to have only theirs. I'm not against their design, I'm against hypocrisy and contrary design attitudes.

 

[Armada]

GaretHax: No many players are playing enough to stay consistent. Of course Fox is losing more on it but it is still because the players are playing to little.

If you wanna be consistent with Fox then just practice a bit more. I do think people overrate (a lot) how hard it is to stay consistent with Fox. Daily practice is they key.

 

[Spiffykins]

I don't think every character needs to have the same flaws, I just think those flaws need to be reasonably balanced. The Melee spacies set a difficult standard to balance a metagame around, having few weaknesses and a multitude of extreme strengths, but nothing's impossible. Still, if any other characters that turn out to have comparably extreme strengths get smacked with a bunch of nerfs, including to things about them that weren't remotely broken...then there are problems.

 

[GaretHax]

GaretHax: No many players are playing enough to stay consistent. Of course Fox is losing more on it but it is still because the players are playing to little.

If you wanna be consistent with Fox then just practice a bit more. I do think people overrate (a lot) how hard it is to stay consistent with Fox. Daily practice is they key.

I can't argue with that. I just feel Fox is overrated, especially when compared to Falco. Also @kink, I actually like the concept of a character limited only by the fact it is being played by a human. I think it is a really cool concept that had fairly surprising results in Fox's case (he can be beaten and doesn't constantly rank #1 in everything ever despite a lot of high level players having a pocket Fox). I would also argue that Fox has quite a few weaknesses beyond human error.

I guess I ultimately see Fox as a character whose risk/reward has been skewed to a point in which he can theoretically stop and stomp just about anything, but is also easily killed/comboed and really suffers from the fact that people just cannot play him at that magic sweetspot/level of decision making and consistency in in which he becomes unstoppable. Personally I feel the level Fox must be played at to succeed, and to dominate the melee scene, is disproportionate compared to other high-tier characters. Which would explain in the fact that he that just doesn't dominate the scene like tier lists and theorycraft says he should. I am admittedly probably wrong about all this, but I find him fascinating regardless and at least from my perspective tourny results seem to support me to some small degree. Anyway its just my opinion.

Also Spiffy I think the PMBR were pretty justified in their decision to tweak things and personally find Ike and lucario more fun to play as, and against now than before. Also if you make something that instantly trumps 10 years of meta-development I would hate to see it after another 10 go by.

 

[Bryonato]

I don't think every character necessarily needs to have the same flaws, I just think those flaws need to be reasonably balanced. The Melee spacies set a difficult standard to balance a metagame around, having few weaknesses and a multitude of extreme strengths, but nothing's impossible. Still, if any other characters that turn out to have comparably extreme strengths get smacked with a bunch of nerfs, including to things about them that weren't remotely broken...then there are problems.

You referring to Lucario/Ike? Maybe this isn't the place for this but I do feel there is a problem in that aspect where melee characters are kind of immune to being nerfed despite having blatant advantages because otherwise it "wouldn't be melee" while new characters who have these new distinct advantages have them (to an extent) stripped away.

 

[Oasys17]

As been said before by a lot of people in the thread, complaining about fox/falco in melee won't get anything done. The only thing left for people to do is suck it up, stop complaining, and start learning how to play against them. Which they did, for the most part, which is why we don't see them win every tournament. However, in PM, which is actively being balanced and patched, there's an opportunity for people to "knock them down a peg." Personally, do I think it needs to happen? Nah not really. I think it's way too early(Hell not even all the characters have been added yet) to change anything major about a character's core. You'll notice that MOST of the top tier, coming from melee to PM was left virtually unchanged. This is probably because they wanted the feel of those old characters to stay consistent, as well as the balance. I think there's still a lot of power to be untapped by the rest of the cast. We could QUITE possibly see some "low tiers" rocket up the tier list, Imo.

 

[Nausicaa]

It's funny how Falcon can be ever so-slightly improved going into Project M, and the gap is commonly considered even wider (entire cast between him a Fox), and yet if the same thing were to happen in Melee (where there's very little gap, but a distinct gap) he would probably be considered for being more viable of a contender overall.

Either the Project M development team and community are AMAZING at balancing (Fox > Falcon proportionally smaller of a gap than Melee, yet an entire CAST of difference in tiers... that's a tight tier list!), or nobody has really given enough credit to their own understanding of experiential dynamics.

Meaning simply, taking the way a Melee Falcon veteran can pick up Melee Falcon and feel the experience comfortably, with every action and decision. The second-guessing or general knowledge that 'there's always something better that could be done' turns into intuitive feel for the game and gravitates towards optimal, efficient play.
...and comparing it to...
Barely any experience or awareness with something new, and going into it with a base-mindset almost entirely around 'over-playing' ones self into being technically fluent and overpowering opponents with stuff they're not aware or experienced or over-played-into-fluency enough to handle.

If someone playing Project M to this day can say their 'success in terms of winning' comes from dynamic application of intelligent play more than beating people with things they haven't grown accustomed to yet (essentially gimmick-natured play, though it may not be 'gimmicky' for long) (and this goes for the 'best' and 'worst' players in the world equally) ... then they have no idea what they're doing.


td;lr
Same old, same old. Strengthen your mind, not the fingers. Be aware, not knowledgeable. Practice learning from your experiences, not simply practicing and experiencing so you can learn. Grow, enjoy, have more fun than you can imagine.
And don't worry about spacies. The process-oriented play required to deal with them is developing in Melee to this day. For a character in Project M to deal with that, it requires a whole lot more play-time before even the gimmicks are no longer the focus of the game.

 

[Oasys17]

It's funny how Falcon can be ever so-slightly improved going into Project M, and the gap is commonly considered even wider (entire cast between him a Fox), and yet if the same thing were to happen in Melee (where there's very little gap, but a distinct gap) he would probably be considered for being more viable of a contender overall.

Either the Project M development team and community are AMAZING at balancing (Fox > Falcon proportionally smaller of a gap than Melee, yet an entire CAST of difference in tiers... that's a tight tier list!), or nobody has really given enough credit to their own understanding of experiential dynamics.

This can probably be attributed to the fact that the PMBR is comprised of some of the world's best Melee players. Melee probably was tested for balance to an extent, the 11 or so years ago it was released @_@. The game has changed so much in how we play it, but (to my knowledge) not at all in terms of balance/what it actually is. Personally it's one of the reasons I feel like PM is the future of Melee. Take, for example, LoL, one of the competitive gaming scene's biggest successes. It's actively patched for balance roughly every month, which allows the creators to keep up with the metagame and weed out what's flavor of the month, to what's actually venomous to the competitiveness to the game

 

[Spiffykins]

Also Spiffy I think the PMBR were pretty justified in their decision to tweak things and personally find Ike and lucario more fun to play as, and against now than before. Also if you make something that instantly trumps 10 years of meta-development I would hate to see it after another 10 go by.

The decision I can understand, the execution is what I'm more critical of. I don't want to go through the laundry list of changes that don't sit well with me though because I feel it's better left up to specific threads and character boards and such.

As for the meta thing, I'm glad you mentioned that because I've wanted to say something about that for a while. The previous decade of Melee meta development included years of gradual discovery of game mechanics and their applications. This is not the case for PM. Both the Melee and Brawl mechanics are already well understood, so character specific development can be expected to progress much faster, especially when players have access to so much information regarding the character design from day one and can easily learn from other good players. Just imagine if any decent player from today traveled back in time to Melee's competitive infancy, with all of the modern tech skill required to even be deemed 'okay' at the game.

You referring to Lucario/Ike? Maybe this isn't the place for this but I do feel there is a problem in that aspect where melee characters are kind of immune to being nerfed despite having blatant advantages because otherwise it "wouldn't be melee" while new characters who have these new distinct advantages have them (to an extent) stripped away.

Partially, but as I said to GaretHax, for me it's more about the type and severity of the changes than the principle of it. It also applies to things like DDD's recovery, just for example. I understand why with Melee airdodge and hitstun having recoveries like vBrawl DDD's would be a big deal, but if Puff can do it and Kirby can still manage to be low tier, clearly it's not automatically broken.

 

[Ace55]

Yup, literally just yup. Besides Falco is the only one I would examine (maybe sheik which they kinda did already) for imbalance... Especially since Nationals and big tournies only really see one space aninal (Falco) winning. But then you get nationals skewed by Peach which leads to my feeling that characters like shiek, peach, jiggs and maybe even Falco are dominating because of the players, not the characters, (armada, pp, hbox/mangox10). But along this line of logic there are alot of really damn good Fox's too. I honestly think Fox is too inconsistent and demanding to be successful in Melee's new, more defensive, Meta and in all likelihood won't do much better in PM.

I think the Fox does fine in todays meta, he doesn't have to play aggressive, his camping, bait and punish and even OoS game are all amazing. But yeah Fox's main problem when it comes to big tournament wins has always been consistency, but that's not a flaw in his design, just a human flaw.

It's funny how Falcon can be ever so-slightly improved going into Project M, and the gap is commonly considered even wider (entire cast between him a Fox), and yet if the same thing were to happen in Melee (where there's very little gap, but a distinct gap) he would probably be considered for being more viable of a contender overall.

Either the Project M development team and community are AMAZING at balancing (Fox > Falcon proportionally smaller of a gap than Melee, yet an entire CAST of difference in tiers... that's a tight tier list!), or nobody has really given enough credit to their own understanding of experiential dynamics.

Meaning simply, taking the way a Melee Falcon veteran can pick up Melee Falcon and feel the experience comfortably, with every action and decision. The second-guessing or general knowledge that 'there's always something better that could be done' turns into intuitive feel for the game and gravitates towards optimal, efficient play.
...and comparing it to...
Barely any experience or awareness with something new, and going into it with a base-mindset almost entirely around 'over-playing' ones self into being technically fluent and overpowering opponents with stuff they're not aware or experienced or over-played-into-fluency enough to handle.

If someone playing Project M to this day can say their 'success in terms of winning' comes from dynamic application of intelligent play more than beating people with things they haven't grown accustomed to yet (essentially gimmick-natured play, though it may not be 'gimmicky' for long) (and this goes for the 'best' and 'worst' players in the world equally) ... then they have no idea what they're doing.


td;lr
Same old, same old. Strengthen your mind, not the fingers. Be aware, not knowledgeable. Practice learning from your experiences, not simply practicing and experiencing so you can learn. Grow, enjoy, have more fun than you can imagine.
And don't worry about spacies. The process-oriented play required to deal with them is developing in Melee to this day. For a character in Project M to deal with that, it requires a whole lot more play-time before even the gimmicks are no longer the focus of the game.

So Bamesy finally shows his face on Smashboards .

The gap between Falcon and Fox in melee is huge when it comes to 'goodness', just not enough decent characters to fill in the gap. It's no surprise to me that in PM he gets surpassed by so many new/buffed chars.

 

[Armada]

Yeah but I don't think we can point it out as a "human flaw" if the humans doesn't work hard enough for it.
Look at all those great players that still mess up a lot on guaranteed stuff that is not THAT hard to execute (Combos for exampel).

So far Im not even closed to convinced it is a "human flaw" but to stay consistent in smash it takes a lot of effort. But tbh tons of peopler find it better to make excuses then spend time improving and ofc harder chars to stay consistent with have a harder time but it is still not because of a human flaw.

 

[Nausicaa]

The gap between Falcon and Fox in melee is huge when it comes to 'goodness', just not enough decent characters to fill in the gap. It's no surprise to me that in PM he gets surpassed by so many new/buffed chars.

Whatever word we use to describe the difference in 'goodness' between them, it's distinct, but it's not something that makes enough distinction to warrant Falcon more than a title of 'moderately nonviable' really.

With only a few things (nothing to his game-play in general, but a tweaking of tools) adjusted, he could easily be stabilized to at least be closer to par with the likes of Marth/Peach/spacies in that category too. Basically, without 'tiers' in mind, just reasonably worth considering as a character that could place very well in tournaments consistently. Say... something like a tweak to his recovery (Side B ledge-grabbing + Up B distance), which would only benefit his edge-guarding flexibility and things without changing the character functionally. Maybe, in future tweaks, something as simple as extending the hit-box of his Uair in some direction to assist in hitting grounded opponents or using it as a safe poke when landing. Who knows what it will really take in a short time, but it really shouldn't be much. He's not that far off, just off.

Every character fitting between a tweaked Falcon and an somewhat untouched Fox in a Melee(ish) replica... is a little absurd to think within a years time. Unless we're as fluky with development as the Melee development team was making that 'party' game. lol

Human error plays more role in thinking we know our errors, than it ever will take part in making one smash character win more than another. Guaranteed.

 

[V-K]

I think what should be done to Falcon is increase the hitbox and damage of his nair. That is one of his most important moves in Melee but small characters like Fox and Falco are not easy to hit and the knockback on the move isn't great. What I would also like to see is a spike on his dair. I never understood why characters like Falco and Marth deserve a spike while characters like Falcon only have a meteor.

 

[Mithost]

As long as characters that start to beat the spacies consistently don't get nerfed (unless they beat the entire cast consistently), I'll be fine with the spacies staying how they are. The main problem I have is the potential for unfair balancing between the high tier melee vets and the new high tier threats. Fox and Falco CANNOT be moved from their perch, and there will be a public outroar by melee players if a character starts to beat their character.

 

[MonkUnit]

v-k, falcon does have a spike. the chest hitbox on dair is the nipple spike.

 

[V-K]

v-k, falcon does have a spike. the chest hitbox on dair is the nipple spike.

I know, but you don't hit with that hitbox 90% of the time. I mean turning the entire hitbox into a spike.

 

[Yung Mei]

buff falcon make falcon punch cancelable and hitbox at frame 1 with extreme priority
also the hitbox has to have nesses fsmash range

 

[Ace55]

Yeah but I don't think we can point it out as a "human flaw" if the humans doesn't work hard enough for it.
Look at all those great players that still mess up a lot on guaranteed stuff that is not THAT hard to execute (Combos for exampel).

So far Im not even closed to convinced it is a "human flaw" but to stay consistent in smash it takes a lot of effort. But tbh tons of peopler find it better to make excuses then spend time improving and ofc harder chars to stay consistent with have a harder time but it is still not because of a human flaw.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean but let me rephrase what I meant.

In over 10 years of competitive melee we have had countless dedicated Fox mains continually pushing the metagame of what is almost unanimously considered the best character in the game. Yet in the grand scheme of things Fox has possibly the least amount of National/International tournament wins of all the top-tiers. Marth (Ken), Sheik (Amsah), Falco (PP), Puff (Mango/Hbox) and Peach (you) have all won some of the biggest tournaments as far as my memory reaches. You could make the argument that those characters just happened to have the best players at the time/place, and I can't dispute that. But I find it extremely weird that arguably the best and most likely the most popular character in Melee has never dominated the scene. I don't think it's a lack of effort or talent on the Fox mains part. I think it's a problem with Fox or to be more precise, a problem with how well humans can consistently play him at the peak of his performance.

 

[Armada]

I understand your argument but I still do not agree.

As I stated earlier basically only 2-3 people in the world are consistent enough to beging with. This means a harder char will have a harder time staying consistent because it is to few people that can stay consistent/put in the work it takes.

The fact people do NOT put in the work that is necessary (might be the case after 100 years of tournaments too) is the flaw here, not humans.

How many people do you think practice close to every day combined with having every other detail that it takes to dominate the scene?
If 99,9% of the community do not practice enough it means that 99.9% (mostly Foxes because he is so popular) will lose a lot when it comes to "stay consistent". Not only the number but also the fact that he is harder to be consistent with then most chars.

If everyone did put in the work that was necessary you would see that "staying consistent" would not be impossible as most people think. With this said I do not imply that anyone can be 100% consistent because that is not possible. But the fact that so few players are even close to "very consistent" when it comes to some things that should be consider "not THAT hard" actually proves this.

Look at Marths on FD vs spacies for example
Basically no Marth is doing 0-deaths even 30% of the time. It is a combination of not having 100% understanding for every option in every part of the combo + the fact that people is not consistent enough.

If you truley practice that **** a lot you should have AT LEAST 80% accurate but no one is close to that number. Once again people that do not practice enough. I will never ever believe that (Marth on FD for example) is even close to reaching a point when "human level for consistency" is something worth discussing.

A game like melee that is very fast and hard to stay consistent in takes a lot of time. The fact melee is not that big makes it harder cause it is not a sport like fotball or something like that.

For everyone that disagree I would actually like to hear what players that does practice on a daily basis.

EDIT: If we take people that have dominated for a LONG while (in America) I guess we then come down to 4 people

Ken/M2k (Marth)
Mango (Puff and Falco even if Puff was WAY more played when Mango was the best in the world and he did win GF at both Genesis 1/Pound4 with Puff and not Falco)
Me (Peach)

I guess that makes Sheik impossible to dominate with too? (Falco sounds like only number 4 or something if we look at it like this)
If we do look at these 4 all of them have been winning for a very long time in their respective primes. That means not many players at all have been on top for a very long time.

I guess players like PC chris/Hbox/PP/KDJ could be included but from what I remember no one of them did dominate the entire world for that long.

 

[Strong Badam]

Well, this topic divulged into an SSBM Tier List discussion pretty quickly.

 

[GP&B]

Furries shouldn't be top tier. It's simple.

 

[Armada]

I would not really point it out as a discussion about tiers.
It is way more what it takes to become a master of a game that is as hard as melee. How "lazy" stuff changes the outcome diffrently for the cast.

I do think stuff like this is very important to remember in a lot of situations, not only in a tier list of melee perspective.

 

[Strong Badam]

I mean yeah, Adam, you bring up some solid points about practicing and how you feel player success isn't 100% tied to character choice, but wouldn't you agree that that is kind of off-topic? It started because of GaretHax saying that Falco is better than Fox and while that's a heavily argued subject in the Melee community, should probably be discussed elsewhere, as there are plenty of topics where that discussion bleeds in and it's relevant. The original subject of this topic is quite different haha

 

[Armada]

Yeah I agree with the subject of this thread is not the things I was talking about.
But since some people did mention it in certain ways I felt tempted to tell my point of view when it comes to being consistent etc.

But yeah since this thread is not really about that I will leave it here.

 

[Strong Badam]

and so we walk off into the distance as the screen fades to black

farewell, Fox/Falco hate thread!

 

[Nintendude]

Fox/Falco are fine but they really should have used the PAL versions of them. The bigger mistake was that in 2.5 they nerfed characters that weren't Fox/Falco.

 

[Nausicaa]

I mean yeah, Adam, you bring up some solid points about practicing and how you feel player success isn't 100% tied to character choice, but wouldn't you agree that that is kind of off-topic? It started because of GaretHax saying that Falco is better than Fox and while that's a heavily argued subject in the Melee community, should probably be discussed elsewhere, as there are plenty of topics where that discussion bleeds in and it's relevant. The original subject of this topic is quite different haha

If you take it in context, this really applies DIRECTLY to Project M discussion.
Particularly, the fact that nobody has given enough credit to their development (practice/experience/consistancy/whatever) in Melee, and therefore think it's SOMEWHERE (at ALL) in Project M, which is really next to no where. Close to the 0% mark in terms of developed dynamics with anything in the game. Take Fox vs Falco on Yoshi's Story in Melee, vs that exact same situation with the same players in Project M. Even that is dynamically different, and it's essentially a near direct replica of the match.

Then you take things like this into consideration.

The fact people do NOT put in the work that is necessary (might be the case after 100 years of tournaments too) is the flaw here, not humans.

99,9% of the community do not practice enough.

If everyone did put in the work that was necessary you would see that "staying consistent" would not be impossible as most people think. With this said I do not imply that anyone can be 100% consistent because that is not possible. But the fact that so few players are even close to "very consistent" when it comes to some things that should be consider "not THAT hard" actually proves this.

Look at Marths on FD vs spacies for example
Basically no Marth is doing 0-deaths even 30% of the time. It is a combination of not having 100% understanding for every option in every part of the combo + the fact that people is not consistent enough.

If you truley practice that **** a lot you should have AT LEAST 80% accurate but no one is close to that number. Once again people that do not practice enough. I will never ever believe that (Marth on FD for example) is even close to reaching a point when "human level for consistency" is something worth discussing.

A game like melee that is very fast and hard to stay consistent in takes a lot of time.

Now I'll rephrase that to be more direct.

The fact people CAN NOT (because it's not possible at this point) put in the work that is necessary (might be the case after 100 years of tournaments too) is the flaw here, not humans.

100% of the community HAS not practice enough.

If everyone did put in the work that was necessary you would see that "staying consistent" would not be impossible as most people think. With this said I do not imply that anyone can be 100% consistent because that is not possible. But the fact that so few players are even close to "very consistent" when it comes to some things that should be consider "not THAT hard" actually proves this.

Look at any character vs spacies for example.
Basically no player is doing 0-deaths even 30% of the time WITHOUT relying on something that is simply the lack of consistency on the spacy players part of being able to get out of things that WON'T WORK in a year from now. DI and the works.
It is a combination of not having 100% understanding for every option in every part of the combo (from either player) + the fact that people is not consistent enough (with any character).

If you truley practice that **** a lot you should have AT LEAST 80% accurate but no one is close to that number. Once again people that do not practice enough. I will never ever believe that (any character played optimally for example) is even close to reaching a point when "human level for consistency" is something worth discussing.

A game like Project M that is very fast and hard to stay consistent in takes a lot of time.


AKA
The Project M development team is doing things 'right' when they don't touch the spacies or the top part of the Melee cast. There's no way (at ALL) that a space animal is the best character in the game, and no way (at ALL) that they'll be considered that way for much longer.

The same applies to any perception people have of balance and quality to date.

This has been very on-topic in this way, and it really is the root of the topic (Fox/Falco too good), but it's easy enough to understand.
The issue is the 'Hate' part of it. Which I really don't think anymore discussion in this will actually clarify anything.

2 things.

Armada: If someone is NOT practicing 100% of the time, when they CAN, then it's technically a human flaw within themselves of effort and determination. If someone commits to it at all that is.

Oasys17: The development team of LoL is actually doing it quite backwards, as they never let things grow to fruition while they keep pruning the game early. It would be parrallel to if Project M was changed every month and nobody ever got to see how good or bad anything really way while it kept changing. DotA has a much more functional system of balancing and game-play developing. Much closer to Project M's, and much closer to something reliable towards accurate change.

No novelties. Essentially.

Thinking Fox and Falco are good in Project M is an illusion based on gimmicks, conditioning, and novelties. 100%
BUT HOW DO WE REACH THE KIDS WHO HATE!?
lol

In other news, Lucas/Wolf/Luigi are too good.

 

[ELI-mination]

dammit where's the dislike button

 

[Mr.Pickle]

Fox/Falco are fine but they really should have used the PAL versions of them. The bigger mistake was that in 2.5 they nerfed characters that weren't Fox/Falco.

I kinda agree with that, maybe not all of the pal changes. If they do get changes it shouldn't be too many. Just enough to where a falco/fox main would agree with it and not go crazy because, "oh mer gerd, you changed my character, I destory". Lol honestly everyone needs a nerf imo.

 

[V-K]

Fox/Falco are fine but they really should have used the PAL versions of them. The bigger mistake was that in 2.5 they nerfed characters that weren't Fox/Falco.

Or they just let them be NTSC spacies and then try to buff everyone else to their level. I don't think people want to come from Melee Falco and then play a different version of Falco in PM.

 

[ELI-mination]

awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww boohoo
wah i don't wanna try new things wah

 

[Nintendude]

The PAL versions of the characters have such negligible differences that I think it's a bogus argument to say it'll deter people from using them. The way they are played don't change AT ALL. Fox is just a little easier to kill and needs to hit with one more attack before his moves will kill. Falco just needs to pay a little more attention to the timing of Dair. Anyone who whines about such superficial changes is a scrub and if they drop the character because of that, maybe that's actually a good thing.

 

[prisoner]

I always believed that Falco's spike should be a meteor smash because it's f'n ridiculous. at least let us try to reverse it! the fact that he can wield that move like a blunt object has always seemed like a poor design decision even in Melee.

I think the issue of spikes vs. meteors and how they balance character design is something that ought to be addressed by the PM team. right now it seems very "because melee", or just plain arbitrary.

 

[GaretHax]

I agree with Armada, Nausica (to an extent), and Strongbad. Also Eli is funny as hell. However @ Armada, I have no delusions of being skilled or seasoned enough to directly challenge your assertions about the game. You just plain know it much better than I probably ever will. But you actually kinda make a good point against yourself (also m2k plays alot of shiek but that isn't my point here), what I was arguing is simple; perhaps it is simply not worth the time required to master Fox at a level of consistency and skill sufficient enough to open up Pandora's theorybox and outright beat every other character. Perhaps pursuing a less technically demanding high-tier character and focusing on improving one's strategy and mental aspects of the game is a better, more reasonable, and ultimately more productive use of time. I'm not complaining that the character is too hard or not good enough etc, I'm just saying that maybe always having nothing but good options that require more inputs to achieve the same result isn't as big of an advantage as people make it out to be. Anyway I'm probably way off base here, but it's just how I've always felt about the character. It just stands to reason (to me at least) that having the most options, with the most required inputs, tightest timings, and the biggest potential consequences for screwing it up (you get comboed or gimped or just fail your execution/pick a less effective option from the near infinite list for every situation, and lose stage control etc.) might both make and break the character. I'm certainly not trying to claim that it can't be done with enough practice, because it almost certainly can be (Look at Dark his techskill is a near-flawless thing of beauty, and Silentwolf's techskill is incredible before you even bring his insane movement and stage exploitation to the table, Mango's Fox (like everything he plays) is insanely smart and pretty damn technical, etc.). And once again I'm not trying to say any other character is easier or any nonsense like that, I'm simply talking about techskill, which is, by a long shot, not the most important thing in smash, and how it may actually prevent people from mastering and exploring/exploiting all the aspects of the character.

However this is just my opinion on the matter and more than likely my last post in this thread as I honestly think your (Armada) opinion is probably closer to the truth than my own. I just wanted to clarify and explain my earlier posts.

 

[Strong Badam]

I always believed that Falco's spike should be a meteor smash because it's f'n ridiculous. at least let us try to reverse it! the fact that he can wield that move like a blunt object has always seemed like a poor design decision even in Melee.

I think the issue of spikes vs. meteors and how they balance character design is something that ought to be addressed by the PM team. right now it seems very "because melee", or just plain arbitrary.

Changing Falco's spike into a meteor is probably one of the most obtrusive and crippling changes you could make to the character. Imagine for a moment that you're Falco, and you've gotten a first hit against an combo-weight character. You shine them, then you jump up to down-air them, hoping to continue pillaring them with further shines and down-aerials. Suddenly, however, after you hit them with your down-air, they meteor cancel it and are out of your combo. I kind of ****ing hate Falco, so this idea is hilarious, but uh yeah. Not gonna happen.

Nausicca: Your post is really long so I kind of don't want to read it but what I did read seemed blatantly wrong and poorly supported. I hope you were kidding when you said "Thinking Fox and Falco are good in Project M is an illusion."

 

[V-K]

I always believed that Falco's spike should be a meteor smash because it's f'n ridiculous. at least let us try to reverse it! the fact that he can wield that move like a blunt object has always seemed like a poor design decision even in Melee.

I think the issue of spikes vs. meteors and how they balance character design is something that ought to be addressed by the PM team. right now it seems very "because melee", or just plain arbitrary..

If Falco's dair will become a meteor it will be almost useless, exactly like the PAL Marth dair.