On the topic of Fox/Falco hate

[ELI-mination]

Translation: If you can't deal with Fox, he's not broken but your character isn't good enough.

Disagreed.

 

[GaretHax]

You are missing the point if you're talking about ZSS's shield game.
Here's the point:

It is not a "noob" or "low level" tactic to throw out several usmashes with Fox in a calculated way. In this particular clip, sure it was ZSS and she was shielding. In other scenarios, it may not be ZSS sitting there shielding, it may not be a character shielding at all, but STILL Fox can throw out usmashes in an intellegient manner. It's that simple.

For you to look at the clip and frantically search for a way to justify Fox's ability to throw out usmashes in tournament-level play repeatedly by blaming everything else except Fox's silliness is to completely miss the point and to passively accept Fox's ridiculously poor character design because you're simply used to it from melee. Why is it a poor design choice? Because Fox should not be able to throw out the same attack over and over again as if it were a viable strategy that can get kills at hilariously low percents at amazing speeds while possessing ridiculous range and a plethora of other options.

What would you do then? Nerf his up-smash? Still has the speed, range and options, nerf his speed? Imo without his speed Fox would be pretty crippled if not downright terrible. Meh I can't think of any characters who can't deal with Fox, personally I think it's more up to the players. Also if most characters can deal with Fox, save a few who currently have trouble, well then it's absolutely either the character or the player, not Fox. Characters in PM as a general rule are doing MUCH better against space animals, low tiers who didn't stand a chance before are able to compete on a near-level playing field, I would say the premise of PM itself, especially since it seems to be working, is proof that it was the other characters, not Fox or Falco.

 

[Nintendude]

So you are basically saying that if your character is countered by another character, that character is broken. That's clearly wrong (ex: Peach vs. Ice Climbers)

 

[ELI-mination]

No I don't even mention Fox countering any particular character. That was never part of my argument ever.

The only reason the whole 'countering' thing even came up was because people saw a ZSS in the clip I linked and immediately began making matchup assessments.

Fox isn't necessarily broken but his design is terrible, and he has several overpowered attacks that reflect imbalance with regards to his entire moveset and options.

@ Garethax: What would I do? Well I would do a million things but I'm biased because I hate Fox and Falco. But in the interest of compromise I don't think it would be illogical to recommend his usmash be weakened a significant amount. And not so that it all of a sudden just combos easier instead. But something should be done because its way too good as it is and it's quite embarrassing from a design standpoint, not to mention how shine is a JCable invincible 1 frame move that kills and combos into everything.

 

[Deleted member]

you can "intelligently" throw out whatever move you want, it's on your opponent to deal with it. if zss can't deal with it but others can, that's an attribute to her character that you would need to know to be good at her. players like this kind of depth and appreciation for specific knowledge. if the entire cast can't deal with it, we have a problem.

turns out it's zss, and if a fox was doing that to my characters it would be a dead fox because i do not play zss.

mike: i wouldn't trust shieldgrab vs fox even if it worked, the margin of error is tight enough that i can understand why the player would choose something else. even with sheik's much better shieldgrab, i still nair oos much more often so i understand the rationale from oro's POV even if was an incorrect decision.

edit: fox is broken, but his design is marvelous and i don't think it should be changed. no other character in any fighting game ever has been the strategic wet dream that is melee fox. the PM team capturing that aspect of the character is truly majestic on their part.

 

[JOE!]

Characters in PM as a general rule are doing MUCH better against space animals, low tiers who didn't stand a chance before are able to compete on a near-level playing field, I would say the whole design of PM is proof that it was the other characters, not Fox or Falco.

You -do- realize most characters are being designed specifically to deal with space animals? Does that not raise a flag?

 

[ELI-mination]

Clearly the solution is to give every character a shine.

That must be it. That's the only way to accomplish majestic wet dream design.

 

[Rat]

What could ZSS have done to punish Fox's Usmash on shield?


I played regular samus in melee and it was very hard to punish Usmash on shield.
Shield Grab is not fast enough. They could buffer spot dodge and avoid it.
You could get a WD dsmash but it had to be frame perfect. Which is extremely difficult to consistently react to in a tournament setting. The risk of missing the timing is that you'll eat an usmash and die.

Maybe WD > jab>jab>jab?

 

[JOE!]

Dont forget Nairplanes.

But in all seriousness, everyone seems to be going out of their way to defend the space animals by saying other characters are bad / if the spacie messed up they'll get wrecked... on the flip side, doesn't that further show that they are too much ahead of the cast if everyone is worse / players can limit how much the mess up due to how much better they are?

 

[Nintendude]

No I don't even mention Fox countering any particular character. That was never part of my argument ever.

The only reason the whole 'countering' thing even came up was because people saw a ZSS in the clip I linked and immediately began making matchup assessments.

Actually I implied that from your argument when you used the phrase "can't deal with." A character that can't deal with another character is one that is countered by said character.

Fox isn't necessarily broken but his design is terrible, and he has several overpowered attacks that reflect imbalance with regards to his entire moveset and options.

I don't really see why Fox is being singled out here. This "imbalance" is pretty much what defines the fastfaller archetype in Melee/PM. They're either on fire, or they are getting wrecked, without any inbetween. All of the fastfallers have some pretty overpowered attacks and guaranteed setups that work against almost every character, but they get death combo'd all over the place. It's one of the things that makes the game so exciting (so much potential for big comebacks). The best way to balance these characters is to make them work slightly harder without changing the way they play.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

"Punishable by wavedash." So devastating.

 

[Oro?!]

What could ZSS have done to punish Fox's Usmash on shield?


I played regular samus in melee and it was very hard to punish Usmash on shield.
Shield Grab is not fast enough. They could buffer spot dodge and avoid it.
You could get a WD dsmash but it had to be frame perfect. Which is extremely difficult to consistently react to in a tournament setting. The risk of missing the timing is that you'll eat an usmash and die.

Maybe WD > jab>jab>jab?

Nothing most likely to punish it, but WD away or hooligan away to reset spacing would've been better decisions. Almost every character has better shield options than ZSS though so it really shouldn't be concerning that you can do that...

 

[ELI-mination]

That was me paraphrasing what you said, hence the "translation" in the beginning

 

[GaretHax]

You -do- realize most characters are being designed specifically to deal with space animals? Does that not raise a flag?

It was my understanding that a fair bit of that is fastfaller specific, not space, and that it's unintentional in most cases as well. I guess I don't understand, Fox is nowhere near as polarizing as Meta-Knight or even NTSC-Shiek, he has never proven himself broken beyond what can be reasonably dealt with (low tiers can and do beat him), and despite being rather widely represented his major tournament results are lackluster to say the least. Personally I think he is actually designed rather well and far more coherently than most other characters in melee.

 

[Nintendude]

That was me paraphrasing what you said, hence the "translation" in the beginning

Right, but you still made a claim based on that, which I responded to lol

 

[Deleted member]

Clearly the solution is to give every character a shine.

That must be it. That's the only way to accomplish majestic wet dream design.

what does fox's strategic game have to do with shine? shine doesn't help you at all from neutral as fox.

reflex: WD OOS is probably the best shield option for greater than 50% of the cast. if you're joking about it, i think you should experiment with it heavily. i can't tell how serious you are on it, sarcasm doesn't internet well, etc.

 

[Oro?!]

Magus has shown me the error of my ways and ZSS can punish upsmash, I'm just bad.

 

[GaretHax]

Magus has shown me the error of my ways and ZSS can punish upsmash, I'm just bad.

All hail Magus!

 

[ELI-mination]

"what does fox's strategic game have to do with shine?"
-Umbreon

 

[Tero.]

srsly we have 12 years of melee metagame showing that both spacies are clearly not broken. why would we even argue about that?

IMO the only thing that needs to get fixed about these characters is falcos shine while hitting opponents lying on the floor. In Melee if you hit a character that is lying on the floor (like falco does during his shine dair combos) he'll bounce up very high without hitstun preventing super stupid combos, which are possible in PM.
I might have not explained it good enough, but I heard other people on the boards complaining about it so it should be known.

Better buff some characters so they are up on the top with the spacies.
Btw on the topic of potential top tiers: Pit is my first choice.

 

[JOE!]

Broken? Nah

Questionably good beyond the other characters? Yes

Buff everybody to be as good as space animals or bring the space animals down to everyone else? ???

 

[Deleted member]

"what does fox's strategic game have to do with shine?"
-Umbreon

oh, so you're going to play stupid. or you are stupid. okay, let's do this.

fox operates in the neutral game based on his movement. due to the nature of his initial dash, full run speed, jump speed, and jump height, fox has the ability to move faster than most characters have the ability to cover options when neither character has the ability to punish prior to a conversion (the neutral game). the strategic element to fox's neutral game is therefore basic exploitation of the opponent's inability to cover his options prior to fox dedicating/over-extending on his own error. unlike other characters, fox's core strategy is based fundamentally on his movement and not his moves.

shine does not aid in this functionality. shine is an option for punishment or conversion into punishment only. to complain about fox's shine is to complain about his punishment game. your argument is an inability to deal with his strategic movement with attribution error. if you really wanted to make fox worse or less broken, you would remove his ability to choose when to attack by making his jumps and dash less effective in some way. removing shine does not solve the problem at all, and actually may aid fox by giving the player less incentive to over-extend and reducing poor decision-making on the part of the fox player.

if you're implying that shine is strategic for fox because it encourages the player to play worse when he need not do so, then congratulations, you're just better than me.

 

[Tero.]

Broken? Nah

Questionably good beyond the other characters? Yes

Buff everybody to be as good as space animals or bring the space animals down to everyone else? ???

90% of melee characters suck
would you rather have a game where everyone is as good as Roy or one where everyone is as good as spacies?

more techs = more options = more fun :D

 

[JOE!]

if everyone is as good as roy there wouldn't be outliers to be put down by.

Spacies are kinda unique in their predicament: they aren't blatantly broken like MK is/was, but at the same time their combination of traits make it puzzling as to why you'd pick anybody else. Combined with the aforementioned 12 years of development any little thing brought up about them would get public backlash.

Now that said, would it be better to bring everyone up to their level? And if so, how? Make everyone have spacie-like tools, or be good vs spacies?

 

[GaretHax]

if everyone is as good as roy there wouldn't be outliers to be put down by.

Spacies are kinda unique in their predicament: they aren't blatantly broken like MK is/was, but at the same time their combination of traits make it puzzling as to why you'd pick anybody else. Combined with the aforementioned 12 years of development any little thing brought up about them would get public backlash.

Now that said, would it be better to bring everyone up to their level? And if so, how? Make everyone have spacie-like tools, or be good vs spacies?

Pretty sure Roy and the unviables are the outliers, so bring them up. And even then people made low tiers work in melee, it ain't brawl.

 

[JOE!]

You're missing the point

If everybody was the same "level" as Roy, they would all be fantastic within the confines of that game.

 

[CyberZixx]

if everyone is as good as roy there wouldn't be outliers to be put down by.

Spacies are kinda unique in their predicament: they aren't blatantly broken like MK is/was, but at the same time their combination of traits make it puzzling as to why you'd pick anybody else. Combined with the aforementioned 12 years of development any little thing brought up about them would get public backlash.

Now that said, would it be better to bring everyone up to their level? And if so, how? Make everyone have spacie-like tools, or be good vs spacies?

If everyone were at the level of Roy melee would be a bad game that we would not be talking about right now. I'd rather a game filled with characters with many useful tools making for dynamic play and interesting match ups than have everyone have few options.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Nah, I acknowledge that it's a very useful and versatile option, but, the follow-up to it wasn't elaborated upon in the post I was referring to, so it just sounded silly in that state.

 

[JOE!]

applies to current discussion

 

[GaretHax]

You're missing the point

If everybody was the same "level" as Roy, they would all be fantastic within the confines of that game.

Except Roy doesn't combo well, has trouble killing and recovering and is 32 types of terrible. I would not want to play superRoybrothers

 

[JOE!]

Ignore the roy part and focus on the "everyone the same" part. Regardless of who it is, if everybody was the same character / on the same playing field there wouldn't need to be discusssions such as this "spacies: too good?" thread we're in now. The question however is weather or not to bring the spacies down a peg, or everybody up a peg relative to space animals?

By "down" I mean tweaking them so that they play exactly the same, but don't have as dominating an effect, See: Wolf. By "up", I mean everybody would have their fair share of silliness like Falco Dair, Fox usmash, Shine, nairplanes, Knees, etc, See: 2.1 Lucario.

 

[CyberZixx]

In this instance I would rather Fox/falco be toned down a bit. Still be a real threat but have to work harder to accomplish the same things.

 

[Juushichi]

So... PAL?

 

[CyberZixx]

Pretty Much. I never seen a PAL spacie in action but the changes sound good.

 

[GaretHax]

Ignore the roy part and focus on the "everyone the same" part. Regardless of who it is, if everybody was the same character / on the same playing field there wouldn't need to be discusssions such as this "spacies: too good?" thread we're in now. The question however is weather or not to bring the spacies down a peg, or everybody up a peg relative to space animals?

By "down" I mean tweaking them so that they play exactly the same, but don't have as dominating an effect, See: Wolf. By "up", I mean everybody would have their fair share of silliness like Falco Dair, Fox usmash, Shine, nairplanes, Knees, etc, See: 2.1 Lucario.

Ignore the Roy part, and make characters better not worse. You don't have to add gimmicks to a character to make them viable, you just need to improve what they are good at, refine their moveset and playstyle, and tweak the little things. Saying everyone needs a shine, or some silly gimmik to compete is ridiculous, as is making the assertion that 2.1 Lucario was somehow more akin to space animals or captain mediocre.

 

[JOE!]

*facepalm* Nobody would suck if they were all "as good" as Roy. That'd be like having a game full of martial artists and nothing else. They'd all be comparable. If you had a game with all martial artists then like, a cowboy who had a shotgun and dual pistols, then there is something better. Same would be said about a game full of cowboys.

Either way, the game with all the same cast would be balanced (and fun) within the margins of said game. A Game full of Roys would have no bad characters as there wouldn't be anything to compare them to: it's like saying that Banjo Kazooie sucks because you don't shoot Wave Beams from Kazooie instead of eggs. Within the game, the egg (types) are just fine for that game.

 

[GaretHax]

*facepalm* Nobody would suck if they were all "as good" as Roy. That'd be like having a game full of martial artists and nothing else. They'd all be comparable. If you had a game with all martial artists then like, a cowboy who had a shotgun and dual pistols, then there is something better. Same would be said about a game full of cowboys.

Either way, the game with all the same cast would be balanced (and fun) within the margins of said game. A Game full of Roys would have no bad characters as there wouldn't be anything to compare them to: it's like saying that Banjo Kazooie sucks because you don't shoot Wave Beams from Kazooie instead of eggs. Within the game, the egg (types) are just fine for that game.

Um fundamentally there's no difference between a game full of Roys and a game full of space animals, balance wise at least. When used in a near meaningless and symbolic way we could say it is a game of jigglypuffs and it wouldn't make a difference. None of this would guarentee a fun or interesting game mind you. And if all the characters are similar it sucks (unless that character is captain falcon), if the characters are all bad and un-interactive it will also suck. The only relevant part of this discussion is how you arrive at a point as close to that level of balance as possible. (since that kind of balance just isn't going to happen ever, in anything, period) I personally have trouble finding solid ground to change the space animals in a negative way, when the rest of the cast was, for the most part, somewhat lackluster to begin with. And so would rather just make the weak ones better.

 

[ELI-mination]

The problem with that philosophy, Garethax, is that anytime a character gets anywhere near the potential of spacies, they get nerfed or "tweaked".
Because everyone is so eager to jump the gun and call something "janky" or "OP" without assessing it honestly. Also, melee isn't some kind of perfect standard in which everything should try to live up to it. It has plenty of issues, and sometimes making things more "melee-like" is a horrible design decision.

 

[V-K]

I think bringing everyone up to Fox and Falco would be cooler simply because I like strong combos and fast kills. Makes the game more interesting than floaty matches.

 

[JOE!]

The point I was trying to get across is that the bad characters were bad compared to the ones that stood out: the martial artists when compared to the gunslinger were the "sucky parts".

Of course perfect balance can never happen, and I referred to characters "on the level of roy", not all actually being roy. What there is to take away is that outliers are bad in either direction, and currently the outliers seem to be the space animals. Reducing their effectiveness won't change how they play for the most part, and buffing everyone else up would need to make them like spacies with all the extra craziness. Which then leads to semi-homogenization, which you said yourself is bad.

Same goes to you V-K: you pretty much said bringing everyone to spacy level makes them like spacies.