On the topic of Fox/Falco hate

[Ace55]

How is that even remotely funny?

If you troll at least make an effort.

 

[Warhawk]

Meant to respond to a lot of this earlier but was busy with finals so sorry if what I'm bringing back up no one wants to talk about anymore lol.

1) I have played a lot of ****ing people, from all over the east half of the country. I get around a lot now

I didn't mean to suggest that you don't travel and/or only ask people you play or people in your region but more assumed that they made up a higher number of the opinions you've gotten. In hindsight however it was a poor assumption and I apologize.

2) In a perfect world: pretty different. I'd like for every character to have a cool novel change and tweaks here and there and something to make playing them feel like a new game.
Since we live in this world: properties that follow the same trade-off rules that every other character has to live by. If your only weak points (hell, nearly your only average points) are up throws, homing attacks, and your own skill ceiling, then you don't need this laundry list of areas where you're in the top third of the character list. Projectiles, shield pressure, recovery options, variability in your approach options, number of kill attacks, ratio of body model to hitbox size, dash speed, one-and-done edgeguarding options, average startup time for moves, and whatever else one of them is good at... I'd like for them to be less reaaaaaaaaallllly good here and less susceptible to silver bullets there. I am a fan of restricted normalization.
Like I said before, it'd be nice to have a game where if I look at a character's Oos options, I don't immediately realize what this was here for.
It'd be nice to play a game where these characters were built towards, not built around. But you can't do that this way.

I've actually thought about how Falco would be if he was made more like his brawl form and still threw his reflector and was based more around his projectile game and also had a much worse combo game but better grab game like in brawl. I mean I think everyone would hate playing against it and it'd be obnoxious, but it'd be interesting. Fox I have less ideas for other than changing his reflector or just outright changing his moves in general, because his defining aspect is his movement and I can't see Fox being changed as a slower character. I think you were talking about less radical changes though, just to make it so a lot of characters don't have to be built around the spacies, but I don't really have any ideas on how to do that.

While I feel a little bad in putting it in such terms, I just think we should be looking into having an overall moveset that encourages people to "actually play the game," and while some traits of the current Fox lasers aid players in doing that, other uses do the opposite, and some traits do both. I can't think of any other projectile that is so well-tuned to it (maybe Falco lasers, but he's slower in general movement, and the rate of fire isn't nearly as high, which means a lot), and I think it would probably be the least intrusive change to Fox we could possibly do while only affecting his ability to run away so that he can't force everyone to fight him from any range.

I've always thought it'd be hilarious is the space animals had only a certain number of lasers per stock and then if they tried to shoot anymore the gun would just click and shoot nothing. I think it'd be kind of interesting the strategy that might come from it too: Foxes would have to moderate their laser bursts for when they really need to force someone to come to them (or for when they need to get the opponent out of CC percentage) and Falco would need to choose his laser wisely to be able to still shoot enough to threaten control with his lasers without running out and losing the control his laser provides. I mean it might result in really stupid gameplay if people actually start counting lasers but it'd be different, and kinda funny when somebody runs out.



Back to addressing whether certain traits of Fox are broken however...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qzYDAEvqnHA#t=106s
Mango kills Armada at 82% with an usmash that is DI'd. It was charged a tiny bit but most reasonably good players can't di like armada in response to things of that nature anyways. Again, counterplay exists but it is immensely difficult. Either way, what I am saying is NOT outrageous as you have implied.

To be fair, that was his only upsmash kill at all in the entire set I believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kna-fp4AND0

at 1:30, Mango puts 10% on armada with SHL in a matter of 3 seconds.

Yea, but he also gives up stage presence and an edgeuard opportunity to tack on however much percent. Also pretty sure armada could have shot an arrow at him fairly easily.

Glass cannons are meant to have great stats in exchange for health. The shine safety and gimpability makes sense. Hell, his speed, weight, and comboability make sense. Even his great recovery makes sense. But wIth Fox's current design, he brings down his opponents healthbar so much with his kill options, he really just makes himself and his opponent into glass. That, IMO is not what a glass cannon is about.

I don't know why this matters so much but besides when I think glass canon I think of a character that has the offensive capabilities to tear the opponent apart really quickly or put a lot of damage on consecutively, but when they are hit and put on the defensive they similarly get shredded, which sounds a lot like Fox in most ways. I don't think the health bar analogy works here and besides that I think it'd be a better point to make that despite the fact that Fox is supposed to be death touched quite often if he doesn't die outright his recovery is actually quite good because of his options.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

As far as the gameplay of the video, the onus is still on Zelda to approach, because lasers are slowly racking up damage and Fox has no real reason to put himself at risk outside of to disrupt Zelda's options sometimes. The video suggests that the only reasonably reliable options Zelda has for doing that are Dash Attacks and Lightning Kicks to the wind, hoping Fox will be moving forward at that time, which is less about actual spacing and more about making hard reads to capitalize on, which is unreasonable to expect the neutral position to play out as, I feel. While Fox does have to go in to land a KO, well-spaced B-Air and N-Air still do an excellent job of being rather safe, and in a KO position, you only need to land one, so the risk of it is relatively negligible there.

Well everyone needs to get reads of some amount to land a hit. Part of the swinging in the wind thing was just the player match-up, thats how kels plays and its how cosmo solved the match-up. It worked. Maybe check this vid if you have time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0evZOxDGxE#t=5m53s (cosmo times out matt r's fox for the win)

How the match-up "should" work from a design perspective, in my head, is that fox has the mobility but zelda has the range. Fox is "safe" on shield but zelda has high reward shield options to punish when she gets a read. Fox has the lasers to make zelda move, but zelda "wins" if they are straight trading. As long as the stage isn't too big, I don't think the fact that fox can laser zelda to be game breaking.

Zelda grab was upgraded from Frame 12 to Frame 9, which is pretty substantial, but I think you might be underestimating the effect of other mix-up options, like Fox's Jab (Jab1 works, while the fastest speed of Jab2 cannot be shieldgrabbed, either) and spotdodge (which would give him frame advantage against a shieldgrab attempt). Can Fox not Shine and then wavedash away safely? I think the most important thing about the matchup is that Fox should basically force Zelda into throwing out attacks that can be punished. I know her Smashes have low cooldown, but her Smashes won't be what bails her out against a campy Fox, from what I can tell. Having to default to "roll away" after shielding a well-spaced aerial encourages Neutral-B camping from Fox, too.

If you watch that Matt R vid I posted up there, Matt almost never shines Cosmo's shield and instead does late aerial->run away. If fox is forced to shine or jab or spotdodge or whatever more often, as respect to the grab, zelda can attack out of her shield for a significant reward. Kicks are pretty common OoS options for zelda that start relatively quickly and have huge reward. Upsmash OoS is an amazing option for zelda and its buffed in P:M (hits lower to the ground). If the last hit lands, it can combo into a kick. Its also relatively quick starting. Fullhop nair works when there is a platform above you, even if the hit misses, you can waveland and use the platform (or just come down with a kick). But also keep in mind, fox doesn't actually get any reward for hitting zelda's shield and it is quite dangerous. Actually, in general zelda has just much better punishes for fox than vice versa (especially when talking edgeguarding).

Ivysaur can safely shuffle F-Air/B-Air, like, 99% of the time, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good ice breaker against a significantly faster character (though it totally works against everyone else just fine/as intended). Ivysaur D-Tilt can break CC at around the percents that D-Smash does, but only when you hit the tip with both hits. That said, it suffers a similar issue as grab--It's easily runjump'd over and you can't at all reliably space it when the opponent is that much faster than you. Also, Ivysaur has basically the same options as Zelda in shield pressure, but with a longer, slower grab. N-Air drags people, she has a good roll, etc. Ivysaur also has an extremely long (in distance, not in animation) tech roll, like Zelda. Also, while the point has already been made, Fox B-Air is soooooo good.

If it was intended that ivy would just spam bair all day, I don't like it. I like the design of the move as a defensive tool, but I don't think it should be the hinge of her game. She needs something to be offensive with, and that means something that can break CC or at least knock down. I mean, even zelda has dash attack to burst forward and kicks/grab to break CC.

I think lasers are still the primary issue in the matchup, but it wouldn't even really matter if lasers were angled downward in the air, or if they could be clanked. They're far and away the hardest projectile to outright avoid in the game (assuming we're not just counting lasers' hit/miss ratio, which would be silly given their rate of fire), and basically every aspect of them discourages offensive play from Fox (autocancels on landing, unlimited range, unclankable, best possible angle), which would probably seem more okay if he weren't already so extremely adept at running around/away. Look at Sonic--A big part of why people think he needs to be changed is because he absolutely forces a good chunk of the cast to come to him without a need for him to make any commitment himself. While I definitely acknowledge camping and running away as a legitimate (if boring) strategy, the extreme aspects of both Sonic and Fox both lend themselves to being able to use this very effectively, especially as a long-standing bait-and-punish (being able to do this from any range is pretty obnoxious, after all).

While I feel a little bad in putting it in such terms, I just think we should be looking into having an overall moveset that encourages people to "actually play the game," and while some traits of the current Fox lasers aid players in doing that, other uses do the opposite, and some traits do both. I can't think of any other projectile that is so well-tuned to it (maybe Falco lasers, but he's slower in general movement, and the rate of fire isn't nearly as high, which means a lot), and I think it would probably be the least intrusive change to Fox we could possibly do while only affecting his ability to run away so that he can't force everyone to fight him from any range. I understand that lasers are integral to his ability of establishing himself as a threat in the neutral position, but surely he could do that even if (only) certain aspects of it were toned down.

Warhawk's post actually gave me a bit of an idea, what if lasers had a refresh cooldown. Say fox has 3 lasers at any point (in the air; if hes doing it on the ground he should have unlimited ), when he uses one it has a 5-10 second timer before it refreshes. This would mean fox could laser a few times to make the opponent come at him (which is something he needs to have), but he couldn't run away shooting all day. He could still platform camp for days, but that is less riskier for him and he isn't actually racking up damage with that type of camping so maybe it'd be okay.

An alternative would be to try to implement something like blazblue/guilty gear's negative penalty. I'm not sure how this could be coded for smash, but essentially the idea would be to discourage people from turtling indefinitely (as fox or as anyone else, really).

 

[JOE!]

What could be done is the more you use "campy" moves per character, (Fox's laser, etc), the more rapidly it stales in damage, and/or you inflict shield-damage to yourself making it so when the foe does approach, even the lightest tap will break your shield.

 

[Oro?!]

Yeah we should completely destroy a fighting game strategy and character archetype because you think its boring to watch and hard to play against.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Well everyone needs to get reads of some amount to land a hit. Part of the swinging in the wind thing was just the player match-up, thats how kels plays and its how cosmo solved the match-up. It worked. Maybe check this vid if you have time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0evZOxDGxE#t=5m53s (cosmo times out matt r's fox for the win)

How the match-up "should" work from a design perspective, in my head, is that fox has the mobility but zelda has the range. Fox is "safe" on shield but zelda has high reward shield options to punish when she gets a read. Fox has the lasers to make zelda move, but zelda "wins" if they are straight trading. As long as the stage isn't too big, I don't think the fact that fox can laser zelda to be game breaking.

If you watch that Matt R vid I posted up there, Matt almost never shines Cosmo's shield and instead does late aerial->run away. If fox is forced to shine or jab or spotdodge or whatever more often, as respect to the grab, zelda can attack out of her shield for a significant reward. Kicks are pretty common OoS options for zelda that start relatively quickly and have huge reward. Upsmash OoS is an amazing option for zelda and its buffed in P:M (hits lower to the ground). If the last hit lands, it can combo into a kick. Its also relatively quick starting. Fullhop nair works when there is a platform above you, even if the hit misses, you can waveland and use the platform (or just come down with a kick). But also keep in mind, fox doesn't actually get any reward for hitting zelda's shield and it is quite dangerous. Actually, in general zelda has just much better punishes for fox than vice versa (especially when talking edgeguarding).

If it was intended that ivy would just spam bair all day, I don't like it. I like the design of the move as a defensive tool, but I don't think it should be the hinge of her game. She needs something to be offensive with, and that means something that can break CC or at least knock down. I mean, even zelda has dash attack to burst forward and kicks/grab to break CC.

Warhawk's post actually gave me a bit of an idea, what if lasers had a refresh cooldown. Say fox has 3 lasers at any point (in the air; if hes doing it on the ground he should have unlimited ), when he uses one it has a 5-10 second timer before it refreshes. This would mean fox could laser a few times to make the opponent come at him (which is something he needs to have), but he couldn't run away shooting all day. He could still platform camp for days, but that is less riskier for him and he isn't actually racking up damage with that type of camping so maybe it'd be okay.

An alternative would be to try to implement something like blazblue/guilty gear's negative penalty. I'm not sure how this could be coded for smash, but essentially the idea would be to discourage people from turtling indefinitely (as fox or as anyone else, really).

While they weren't as substantial, I feel there was suboptimal play going on there for Fox as far as the matchup is concerned. I think I saw literally one grab attempt that whole time; while Fox doesn't get anything guaranteed from them, it puts her on the run, and getting her into the air can give free, safe attempts to B-Air her, which would be substantial damage opportunities. More importantly with that, though, it got Cosmo into the habit of "well, I'll just shield and use my solid OoS options to manage every time," which worked fine for him because Matt R didn't switch it up. Tomahawks and JC grabs can be scary to do when you can get punished as hard as Fox can, but it's the sheer number of effective options that makes him what he is. Whenever he was put near the edge, he tried to jump over her almost every time and never fired a single laser or attempted to bait an instant Dash Attack from Zelda, which made him predictable. There are brass balls you have to show in order to keep your opponent in a constant state of "I have no idea what his next move is going to be," even in uncomfortable positions, and I feel that concept is entirely possible to manage for Fox whenever you're not being edgeguarded. It is the very essence of competitive Fox and what elevates him to top tier status, IMO. Back to the match, though--Matt R was barely even fishing for U-Smash, opting to just try and hard read her, which was foolish of him. There's a huge difference between calculated risk and "sponsored by Nike" U-Smashing. With Zelda at 156%, there's no reason that shouldn't be an aerial instead, as they'd accomplish much of the same effect without being as punishable.

Also, expounding on the idea of "options are power," in this matchup (and most of them involving significant mobility disparity), it's best to make the most of the horizontal mobility over the vertical speed. No one likes to get hit by a Lightning Kick, but the active frames only last for four frames (not sure if this was boosted in terms of frame count in PM), so smart ground mobility will inevitably get them to come out "at the wind," which gives opportunities to grab, Shine, or tag her with a safe RAR B-Air or N-Air. Vertical approaches are much more predictable, given that the primary substantial mix-up that way is "using up your double-jump," which costs resources and leaves no real escape plan. Most of these characters cannot adequately cover their front from basic bait-and-punish stuff from a character that forces them to swing (as Fox's lasers do) instead of holding their general space. Stuff like large cooldown, CC-able spacing tools, and the like significantly reduce the range they can potentially control, which is really crippling against an unpredictable foe.

I do see how the Zelda buffs help her in the matchup (U-Smash OoS means Fox has to be more on point with his spacing and safety, and a safer N-Air is cool for the reason you stated), but I don't think they adequately address the problem I see. She still has no way to break the ice, and that's really crippling.

As an aside, Ivysaur F-Air is the real godsend here--It's bigger than B-Air and sends people at a really high angle, allowing for reliable combos when it's not CC'd and making for a more flexible poking tool than B-Air. It's obnoxious and dumb and I think it needs changing. I suspect that Ivysaur will see changes that allow her to go in better in the future instead of relying on boring, overcentralizing pokes, so there's that. F-Tilt after shuffling aerials is pretty helpful for dealing with CC/shield stuff, too.

I would be open to limiting laser count in some way as a means of mitigating runaway abuse. A "refresh" seems like a neat, reasonable way to accomplish that, or even some sort of range reduction over the course of "spending" it, like Fire Breath/Flamethrower. Not sure how Fox players would feel about that, though.

What could be done is the more you use "campy" moves per character, (Fox's laser, etc), the more rapidly it stales in damage, and/or you inflict shield-damage to yourself making it so when the foe does approach, even the lightest tap will break your shield.

That would be ridiculously unintuitive and would "feel" really dumb for both players involved.

 

[SwordsRbroken]

How is that even remotely funny?

If you troll at least make an effort.

You must be new here.

And as far as Fox/Falco possible nerfs go, I'm liking the idea of nerfing their hitboxes some. It'll promote cleaner play without tampering with their original design too much.

Does anyone have a hitbox image of Fox/Falco's Nair and Bair?

 

[JOE!]

the guy wanted to know how to make that BB thing work lol

Don't think you can directly make yourself take more damage based on just doing "defensive" actions such as moving away, so making moves stale faster or lower your defense would substitute.

 

[The_NZA]

You must be new here.

And as far as Fox/Falco possible nerfs go, I'm liking the idea of nerfing their hitboxes some. It'll promote cleaner play without tampering with their original design too much.

Does anyone have a hitbox image of Fox/Falco's Nair and Bair?

I think messing with hitboxes is probably the most tampering you can do. Few things change a way a character operates more than changing their range/spacing.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

I'm glad the discussion has moved to a more positive route. Now for my suggestion, perhaps fox's lasers could have the brawl travel distance, or maybe they could do varying damage depending on the distance they're fired.

 

[JOE!]

Alternately, maybe a bit of give and take:

Faster fire rate on the ground, but less safety when hopping around with them. If you want to force an approach, he should commit a bit more.

 

[leelue]

I have always found the disparity in utility between grounded and aerial projectiles to be silly. There's almost no tradeoff. I think Lucas and zss had commendable direction in those departments.
Idk if that's for Fox, but I'm just sayin.

 

[Deleted member]

the fact that they are preventing zelda from being the better version of her melee self she deserves to be.

That...doesn't make sense. She's superior to Melee Zelda in pretty much every way, so how would taking a useless move and giving it some use (albeit in a way you don't enjoy) somehow prevent her from being a better version of her Melee self?

Basically, I feel the P:M Zelda emphasizes the sideb camping too much (which was something I didn't like about vbrawl zelda)

Zelda can camp in Brawl with Din's Fire, unanimously agreed to be one of, if not the worst projectile in that game? That's news to me.

The discussions about Zelda always boil down to her being "boring" and the ways people would change that. I don't think she's perfect (far from it), but I find it humorous that people who haven't invested much time in the character and most likely would not use the character often regardless because she's slow and defensive by design (which will not change) think they're being helpful by making suggestions which involve heavily altering one of her more defining moves in Project M which actual Zelda players have taken the time to learn and work into their gameplay.

Hey, I hate how Jigglypuff plays currently and won't ever seriously pick up the character, but could you guys change her moves to make her more fun for me?

 

[JOE!]

Jiggs is a different case in that literally a handful of moves define her

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Give Fox the Great Fox's canon shot if he shoots from the ground. Balanced


Reflex: Yea, I mean you can always find faults in anyone's game, especially if you're looking at the loser.

I think fox has and will have some amount of advantage on every character he is faster than, but it is his primary trait (as opposed to marth or ike or ganon whose primary traits are range). I don't think he necessarily wins every match-up where he is faster than his opponent due fundamental exploits (cutting off space, trapping, forcing trades, etc). Fox's lasers don't force someone to actually attack (though fox would really like it if the opponent does start swinging), but it does force them to approach (not the same thing). Also keep in mind that Fox winning a match-up on paper doesn't really have any bearing on how often fox actually wins the match-up. Fox has even or better match-ups on paper with every character in melee but due to how balanced the game is at a fundamental level he actually doesn't win many tournaments.

Fox definitely has the advantage on zelda in melee, that is no question (cosmo put the match-up at like 70-30 or 80-20 at one point). I would like to see some buffs to zelda that allows her to keep a similar gameplan but have a better match-up. Honestly I think the improved shield options are right up that alley, since I consider zelda's out of shield game to be her biggest strength despite fox not really noticing/caring in melee. In P:M I would think that zelda could become a legitimate counter to fox if she is buffed too much (or enough, depending on your point of view lol). She already resists the majority of his combos, reducing his play to hit and run attrition, while having pretty devastating combos on him (even just single hit trades should favor zelda).

I dunno, i just don't think speed trumps all. Zelda has traits that make up for her lack of speed and definitely has (or should have) things of her own to exploit. Patience from one player requires a patient response from the other. Just because fox is lasering and waiting doesn't mean zelda should recklessly rush him; she should move forward very carefully, patiently. Instead of getting to fox in 1.5 seconds, she maybe should take 3 seconds, being wary of the fact that fox can stop shooting and attack. If nothing happens during her approach she will find herself in an advantaged position (if zelda had no good zones on fox, fox wouldn't be running away and shooting, would he?).

So yeah, I'm not saying you're wrong, because you're right on how fox wants to play the match-up. Im trying to tell the other side of the story, of how zelda wants to force fox to play the match-up. The actual result of how the match-up plays out is determined by the skills of the players alone (or should in a balanced game).

 

[9bit_alt]

Add a frame or two to shine's startup, add lots of ending lag to Fox's upsmash. Done.

 

[Vashimus]

Does anyone have a hitbox image of Fox/Falco's Nair and Bair?

 

[leelue]

LOL I remember when I was making characters and I tried to make my hitboxes sensible
What was I thinkin















ZSS

 

[metroid1117]

LOL I remember when I was making characters and I tried to make my hitboxes sensible
What was I thinkin















ZSS

IMHO the hitboxes are fine, it's just that they look really high because of interpolation.

Also, in case people were curious, here's the hitboxes and frame data for Fox's USmash taken from this thread.

Total: 41
Hit: 7-17
Head invincible (but not snout): 1-9
Charge frame: 2

 

[Kink-Link5]

Head invincible (but not snout): 1-9

Omelee

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Didn't you know, canines are always prone to getting smacked in the nose.

Also, as metroid mentioned, the hitboxes are interpolated. In melee (i am not sure if this is true in the brawl engine) the hitboxes would essentially "stretch" from one frame to another, leaving a 1 frame trail where the hitbox was before. In the gifs, fox and falco are both falling as you can see from the interpolation (if they weren't moving you would see the hitboxes are perfect circles).

 

[B.W.]

Even if it's not the same in the Brawl engine (though I'm sure it is), interpolation is in P:M

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Cool good to know. I can then still abuse the fact that retreating aerials have more priority than approaching aerials in order to win trades that I normally couldnt

 

[leelue]

I didn't realize that the gifs were taken on a falling character. Seems odd

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

If you gif explode it (link) you'll see that on the first frame there is no dragging effect.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Reflex: Yea, I mean you can always find faults in anyone's game, especially if you're looking at the loser.

I think fox has and will have some amount of advantage on every character he is faster than, but it is his primary trait (as opposed to marth or ike or ganon whose primary traits are range). I don't think he necessarily wins every match-up where he is faster than his opponent due fundamental exploits (cutting off space, trapping, forcing trades, etc). Fox's lasers don't force someone to actually attack (though fox would really like it if the opponent does start swinging), but it does force them to approach (not the same thing). Also keep in mind that Fox winning a match-up on paper doesn't really have any bearing on how often fox actually wins the match-up. Fox has even or better match-ups on paper with every character in melee but due to how balanced the game is at a fundamental level he actually doesn't win many tournaments.

Fox definitely has the advantage on zelda in melee, that is no question (cosmo put the match-up at like 70-30 or 80-20 at one point). I would like to see some buffs to zelda that allows her to keep a similar gameplan but have a better match-up. Honestly I think the improved shield options are right up that alley, since I consider zelda's out of shield game to be her biggest strength despite fox not really noticing/caring in melee. In P:M I would think that zelda could become a legitimate counter to fox if she is buffed too much (or enough, depending on your point of view lol). She already resists the majority of his combos, reducing his play to hit and run attrition, while having pretty devastating combos on him (even just single hit trades should favor zelda).

I dunno, i just don't think speed trumps all. Zelda has traits that make up for her lack of speed and definitely has (or should have) things of her own to exploit. Patience from one player requires a patient response from the other. Just because fox is lasering and waiting doesn't mean zelda should recklessly rush him; she should move forward very carefully, patiently. Instead of getting to fox in 1.5 seconds, she maybe should take 3 seconds, being wary of the fact that fox can stop shooting and attack. If nothing happens during her approach she will find herself in an advantaged position (if zelda had no good zones on fox, fox wouldn't be running away and shooting, would he?).

So yeah, I'm not saying you're wrong, because you're right on how fox wants to play the match-up. Im trying to tell the other side of the story, of how zelda wants to force fox to play the match-up. The actual result of how the match-up plays out is determined by the skills of the players alone (or should in a balanced game).

I understand what you mean, but we should basing our balance decisions on top-level play, and I'm pretty sure, say, Mango (I don't really know who has a top-level Fox these days) wouldn't be making the same mistakes nearly as often (if at all; it's not like you have to seriously consider your whole moveset against Zelda as Fox). Obviously, it's hard to make comparisons that like, too (what Zelda has put as much work into her as the best Foxes, etc.), but I think it's safe to say that as often as they were happening, the mistakes I described could only come from matchup inexperience or general game inexperience. Perhaps I just find it easier to say as a jaded low tier main from Melee (played Bowser and G&W mostly, with some Young Link and DK), but I've seen (and been part of) many a scenario where I'm severely outplaying people and wonder why they didn't just use lasers more to force an approach and then unpredictable movement to N-Air/B-Air/grab me into oblivion in most situations. Again, I wasn't a top-level Melee player, but the low tiers are low tier because they're missing things that are integral for reliable success in high-level play. Of course, people don't take that sitting down, which is among the reasons low tier players continue to hone their craft in competitive play, but the line between potential is hardly blurred after over a decade of play (which carries over to PM to some degree, but not entirely given that most characters retain their general feel and metagame, and others are entirely new).

It's not speed in and of itself, but the unpredictability that the Melee and PM engines allow that create an issue. Mobility is the real problem, with a certain speed threshold aiding it. The fact that Zelda and Ivysaur can't shuffle aerials as quickly or as efficiently (in terms of hitbox length/placement and runjump speed, mostly) as other characters isn't an issue against anyone but the fastest of the fast, and that's mostly an issue because you absolutely have to come to them when you can't do it anywhere close to reliably or safely without being out of their space, hoping they decided to move forward at that exact moment. Being patient gives you time to think, but whether Zelda chooses to move forward in 1.5 seconds or 3, she still has to make a guess and throw attacks at the wind while taking unavoidable damage from the fastest character in the game. This is only an issue because of the very nature of platform fighters; 99% of the time, players have wayyy more options in terms of where they can go than in traditional fighters. Taking to the air or a separate grounded tier (platforms) change the dynamics of neutral play significantly, especially for a character that falls the fastest, which is bad when you're being comboed but great when you're trying to mix someone up with your movement. Horizontal aerial mobility is mitigated by runjump potential for Fox in most cases, so it's not like his being in the air from time to time is just easy to predict and punish.

Zelda can stand her ground well against Fox's approaches, but Zelda is not good at approaching him in general, and that's the entire reason that the laser is so devastating--Fox can take advantage of that neutral position without a need to make hard reads to get damage on Zelda. I don't think any matchup should be like that. Zelda's "forcing" Fox to primarily use a risk-free projectile to damage her, while Fox forces Zelda to have to make a commitment with the first move literally every time she wants to do -anything- to him. Fox can (and should) be preemptive in that position from time to time, but it's merely for disruption; Fox technically doesn't have to until Zelda is at KO percents or Fox is at the ledge (and at that point, Fox already had many, many opportunities to mix her up with a relatively safe ice-breaker attack/grab [rather than attempting to U-Smash her at 2%]), with "relative" being in relation to the Dash Attacks and Lightning Kicks at nothing that Zelda has to do to reasonably keep a stray Fox approach in check, as well as to do anything at all to him that doesn't require a screw-up on Fox's part. I agree that general skill and experience should be the deciding factor in any matchup within a competitive game, but this is exactly why I feel that a risk-free, impossible-to-avoid (overall) move shouldn't be the most significant factor behind the ratio of a number of matchups.

 

[Oro?!]

Leelue what did you mean with the hitbox thing and the zero use samus thing and the christmas hat in may thing.

 

[The_NZA]

Leelue is a very special person with very funny jokes. I learned that the hard way.

 

[leelue]

Leelue what did you mean with the hitbox thing and the zero use samus thing and the christmas hat in may thing.

zss's feet on fair/bair seem to have hitboxes that only hit on her model, and nowhere else. Also, in 7 months it'll seem far less lazy.

 

[Oro?!]

Yeah she has no disjoints on basically any non blaster/whip box. good thing those are all clankable except dsmash and unchanged blaster.

#unviable

 

[MysteryRevengerson]

zss's feet on fair/bair seem to have hitboxes that only hit on her model, and nowhere else. Also, in 7 months it'll seem far less lazy.

I actually think the hitboxes on Fair aren't even the size of her feet, they're probably smaller

 

[leelue]

They're like as big as the hurtbox on an uncharged din. so like... arealess

 

[Oracle]

zss is too thin she needs to get on that chun li thunder-thigh level

 

[Kink-Link5]

I could get in on that. ZSS looks more like she's ready to stroll down a catwalk than to jump into a fight with that build. All ass and no thigh looks goofy anyway.

OH **** THIS ISN'T THE SOCIAL THREAD **** YOU ORACLE

Fox and Falco's "large" hitboxes are pretty common for characters in general. Sheik has the same thing going on with her notorious forward-hitting bair.

 

[JOE!]

On a stupid note:

Trying to outcamp fox/falco with your own projectiles? If they dont just hit (it/you) first, they have Down B's that reflect

 

[The_NZA]

On a stupid note:

Trying to outcamp fox/falco with your own projectiles? If they dont just hit (it/you) first, they have Down B's that reflect

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=T25Ra8UPDrE#t=374s

 

[JOE!]

Pretty much

 

[Vashimus]

I could get in on that. ZSS looks more like she's ready to stroll down a catwalk than to jump into a fight with that build. All *** and no thigh looks goofy anyway.

Well, she's supposed to be fit and proportional, especially since she has that Chozo DNA and all. Unless you want her to look more muscular. Like...

(shudders)

 

[CyberZixx]

I like that Wonder Women design much more than her standard one.

 

[Vashimus]

All she needs is an Adam's apple.