Official Patch 3.1.0 Discussion Thread

[Garolymar]

So I've started seeing more and more videos of Olimar's shield being pretty useless now. Pretty sad times.

 

[Kiligar]

So I've started seeing more and more videos of Olimar's shield being pretty useless now. Pretty sad times.

How is it useless? And what’s sad? Olimar is still decently strong, just not #1. I’d say he’s at the higher end of high tier.

 

[Garolymar]

How is it useless? And what’s sad? Olimar is still decently strong, just not #1. I’d say he’s at the higher end of high tier.

His hitbox is apparently now bigger than his shield even at full health.

 

[RedWire77]

Luigi BUFFED OR NERFED?

Luigi's plunger (zair) used just before landing was buffed slightly (not really noticeable, according to Beefy Smash Dudes; see https://youtu.be/1HCErTzAn6Y). His invincibility frames during cyclone were not changed except for the glitch that was super cyclone, so unless you were relying on that cyclone has no changes.

So overall, nerf? But only if you used super cyclone; otherwise, it's a slight buff.

 

[blackghost]

About Bayonetta's Up-B, I don't think this is an error. I think it's relative to the recovery frames when doing several Up-B and Side-B. In that case, 2 Up-B and 2 Side-B have the landing lag drastically decreased, from 50 to... 39 or 40, not really sure, I'm not sure one how to count correctly the FAF.

the bayo discord fnished this last night.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10XNTMy5xAPS2MvYeNGtD--Uq7SRyaqZVu5-uK8l53AM/edit?usp=sharing

 

[xzx]

His hitbox is apparently now bigger than his shield even at full health.

It's weird, since Pichu's shield got bigger to compensate for the hurtbox size increase. They should have done the same for Olimar.

 

[Rucent]

Hey guys, It's Rucent!

I felt like sharing that Sonic did get a change in this patch! Homing Attack's tracking is slightly different.

Although we don't know all the details, the main thing is that the move's trajectory is more convenient when trying to go horizontally. This is great and all, but the thing that caught my eyes is the vertical tracking, which has a weird blind spot that lets Sonic consistently whiff the attack as shown here, here, here, and here.

A lot of Sonic players have mixed views on the change. Some believe it's a buff in regards to it's usage in neutral and with some low-mid percent combos. For others, myself included, this is a nerf as the trajectory makes one of our more well known kill set ups harder to perform. This is primarily because the tracking itself aims more for the opponent's body instead of the head. Not only that, the blind spot I mentioned earlier is easy to set up, and generally puts Sonic in a really inconvenient spot. It's kinda like using Spring, except you have tons more lag, have no i-frames, and your opponent can easily react and punish it.

With the help of Ruben, we found out that some of Sonic's homing attack code did get changed, as indicated in this link.

It's weird that Nintendo wouldn't mention anything about it in the patch notes.

With all that said, thanks for reading!

 

[shrooby]

I did some testing to see what the C.Falcon changes actually do so here's the results.
Testing was done in training mode with 1 cpu set to control and 1-frame per ZL press
Changes are highlighted by: *

3.0.1:
1: When hitting King k. rool with Side-special, K.rool's jump comes out on frame-53 at 0%, and f-59 at 100% from the moment K.rool gets hit, with Side-special being initiated right next to K.rool.
2: Regardless of distance, the faf for K.rool after getting hit is always the same.
3: When K.rool stands in the starting position, C.falcon's Side-special connects when the tip of his left foot is on the outer-line of block -5.8, it does not connect on block -5.9.
4: C.falcon's faf after hitting with side-special is f-41 with K.rool at 0%, this is the same for long-distance, and with K.rool at 100%
5: C.falcon's Side-special hits on f-6 of foe-detection(f-16 of move initiation when next to opponent), same for long-distance
6: C.falcon's Side-special deals 18-frames of hitfreeze, and launches the opponent on f-19
7: C.falcon's Bair 15.6%-hitbox ko's Mario into the right-blastzone at 116% in Training mode-Battlefield's starting position(middle of right-platform) with no DI
8: C.falcon's Ftilt 9.6%-hitbox ko's Mario into the right-blastzone at 236% in Training mode-Battlefield's edge-of-the-right-platform with no DI
9: C.falcon's Ftilt 10.8%-hitbox ko's Mario into the right-blastzone at 215% in Training mode-Battlefield's edge-of-the-right-platform with no DI


3.1.0:
*1: When hitting King k. rool with Side-special, K.rool's jump comes out on frame-54 at 0%, and f-60 at 100% from the moment K.rool gets hit, with Side-special being initiated right next to K.rool.
2: Regardless of distance, the faf for K.rool after getting hit is always the same.
3: When K.rool stands in the starting position, C.falcon's Side-special connects when the tip of his left foot is on the outer-line of block -5.8, it does not connect on block -5.9.
4: C.falcon's faf after hitting with side-special is f-41 0%, this is the same for long-distance, and with K.rool at 100%
*5: C.falcon's Side-special hits on f-5 of foe-detection(f-15 of move initiation when next to opponent), same for long-distance
6: C.falcon's Side-special deals 18-frames of hitfreeze, and launches the opponent on f-19
*7: C.falcon's Bair 15.6%-hitbox ko's Mario into the right-blastzone at 109% in Training mode-Battlefield's starting position(middle of right-platform) with no DI
*8: C.falcon's Ftilt 9.6%-hitbox ko's Mario into the right-blastzone at 211% in Training mode-Battlefield's edge-of-the-right-platform with no DI
*9: C.falcon's Ftilt 10.8%-hitbox ko's Mario into the right-blastzone at 193% in Training mode-Battlefield's edge-of-the-right-platform with no DI
10: There is no difference in the speed at which C.falcon moves after initiating Side-special, nor is there a change in the timing of when he starts moving

There are also changes to Utilt, Fair, and Down-special, but I didn't bother testing those as Utilt's changes were already documented, and Fair and Down-special's changes are too much of a pain to test for.

So to put it simply:
Opponents can move 1-frame later after getting by C.falcon's Side-special
C.falcon's Side-special hits 1-frame earlier
C.falcon's Bair ko's roughly 7% earlier
C.falcon's Ftilt weak-hit ko's roughly 25% earlier
C.falcon's Ftilt strong-hit ko's roughly 22% earlier
(untested by me but included for the sake of being comprehensive)
C.falcon's Utilt hits and stops 3-frames earlier
C.falcon's Fair has a bigger hitbox
C.falcon's Down-special is longer active

The patch notes say that there is a "Reduced startup of when Captain Falcon starts moving forward", but this is incorrect; in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HCErTzAn6Y if you set the video to 1080p60 and press . and , to move forward 1-frame at the time from the 2:19 mark, you can see that he does not move earlier, and there is no difference in C.falcon's position during the move(make note of the fact that the old and new footage seem to start from different positions, I've attempted to show the difference here, https://imgur.com/lnURp3h it seems that the new footage starts just slightly further to the right)
If this line refers to the post-foe-detection hit-startup, then I think it should be phrased like "Reduced startup of when Captain Falcon starts post-proximity-detection-hit by 1 frame"
The patch notes also say that there is "Increased hitstun" on Side-special, but this is incorrect; there is no difference to the freeze-frames, only to the launch-immobility. Admittedly hit-stun is a term used in this community to refer to launch-immobility, but as it is also used by nintendo to refer to freeze-frames, I think it would be better to use the term launch-immobility to avoid confusion.

Thank you! I've edited the Side Special bit to reflect your findings.

The patch notes also say that there is "Increased hitstun" on Side-special, but this is incorrect; there is no difference to the freeze-frames, only to the launch-immobility. Admittedly hit-stun is a term used in this community to refer to launch-immobility, but as it is also used by nintendo to refer to freeze-frames, I think it would be better to use the term launch-immobility to avoid confusion.

With regards to this, what Nintendo calls "hitstun" is what we call hitlag, or freeze-frames when you're hit. This seems to be a bit of a mistranslation on their part, as in the Japanese notes, it's referred to as "hit-stop" which is hitlag. (This came up in v2.0.0 with changes to Palutena's nair and a couple other moves.) It seems that they're now using the phrase "extended the time launched opponents can move again" to refer to what we've always called hitstun.

 

[S_B]

Yes, what is this bizarre universe this patch was made in, where Olimar/Pichu/Wolf/Peach/Daisy/Lucina were good, and Falcon/Diddy/Bayo/Rosa/Ryu/Ken/Lucario/Mac/Bowser Jr. were bad?

Yes, but I'm talking about the balance of a character that actually matters.

But seriously, the KKR fanbase (which surprised the bejeezus out of Sakurai due to being almost as overwhelmingly huge as the character himself), has been sitting there with baited breath, waiting for one of these balance patches to address some of his core issues and they've yet to even come close to that.

I mention online because that's the only place I can image where KKR isn't being entirely thrashed. Falcon/Diddy/Bayo/Rosa/Ryu/Ken/Lucario/Mac/Bowser Jr. may be fairly bad as well, but I subscribe to every major SSBU tournament channel I can find and I've seen all of the aforementioned characters except maybe Diddy and Bowser Jr in recent VoDs while KKR is conspicuously absent (I'm literally watching Captain Zack's Bayo take a game off of Nairo's Palutena right this moment).

Not that they didn't need help, but I feel like KKR is a nonentity at this point and will continue to be so until he can't be "GGed" with a counterpick.

Plus, it's not like past games where heavies were destined for F-tier: I regularly see Bowser, DK, Ganondorf, D3, and even the occasional Incineroar in tournaments and they usually do decently. I fully believe they CAN elevate him above the title of "noob slayer". It's just that they've not taken steps to make that happen yet.

 

[Axioms]

Thank you! I've edited the Side Special bit to reflect your findings.



With regards to this, what Nintendo calls "hitstun" is what we call hitlag, or freeze-frames when you're hit. This seems to be a bit of a mistranslation on their part, as in the Japanese notes, it's referred to as "hit-stop" which is hitlag. (This came up in v2.0.0 with changes to Palutena's nair and a couple other moves.) It seems that they're now using the phrase "extended the time launched opponents can move again" to refer to what we've always called hitstun.

You're welcome

The problem that I have with the terms hitstun and hitlag, is that it isn't clear from the terms themselves what they're referring to. Take hitstun for instance; the term is referring to the "stun" that you get from a "hit", but stun if is interpreted as "the inability to perform actions due to being stunned" then it can easily refer to both the freeze-frames(where both are frozen in place) and the launch-immobility(where you can't move while being launched) as they are both states in which you can't perform any actions due to being hit. The same can be applied to hitlag, which can be interpreted as the "lag" caused by a "hit"; it can refer to the state both characters are in after an attack connects as both are "lagging" in place, or it can refer to the state of being launched as this is also a type of "lag" where you have to wait before any actions can be initiated.
So because neither term clearly describes what it is referring to, and because both terms are also very similar to each other, I consider them to be inadequate for descriptive purposes, which is why I use the terms Freeze-frames and Launch-immobility; the term Freeze-frames can't really be used for the state of being launched as the word "freeze/frozen" is rarely used to mean anything other than "stuck in place", and it's unlikely that Launch-immobility can be interpreted as anything other than "immobility while being launched". Of course you and anyone else can use whatever terms you want to, but I will continue to use the terms Freeze-frames and Launch-immobility should they come up. Personally I hope that the terms will catch on in both nintendo and smash-fan circles as they are much easier to interpret.

 

[yoshi8984]

I've wanted to ask, was it just Peach's Fair sourspot that took the nerf? Or both hitboxes on it? I've seen a video on Peach sour Fair, but unsure if sweet spot (the tip) got nerfed too. Clarification would be appreciated!

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I've wanted to ask, was it just Peach's Fair sourspot that took the nerf? Or both hitboxes on it? I've seen a video on Peach sour Fair, but unsure if sweet spot (the tip) got nerfed too. Clarification would be appreciated!

According SSB Wiki.:

"Forward aerial has less knockback scaling (78 (clean)/76 (sourspot) → 74/71)"

Basically Fair kills roughly 5% later...

 

[Rocketjay8]

According SSB Wiki.:

"Forward aerial has less knockback scaling (78 (clean)/76 (sourspot) → 74/71)"

Basically Fair kills roughly 5% later...

Wow, seriously? That's not that bad. Why are people complaining so much about that?

 

[NeonNote]

Wow, seriously? That's not that bad. Why are people complaining so much about that?

Peach main here. That nerf doesn’t bother me. The turnip nerf I can’t get over. Also I’d love to know if literally anybody has ever had an issue with her back throw. Her only kill throw that already wasn’t anything special. Balance team apparently is against the notion of every character having a kill throw. This patch is garbage. I’m glad at least some characters got needed buffs

 

[Mariomaniac]

Yeah, sure.......... next patch......

They’re waiting for the movie

 

[New_Dumal]

I really think Ultimate 3.1 is worse than 3.0.
The patch deleted Pichu (will still be used in some matchups, but I really can't see the character winning a major anymore), literally crashed Olimar and removed good but not broken options from Lucina/Wolf. IMO, the only characters that were buffed in a way that can make something happen are Diddy/Ken. There is no character that was not viable only because of Pichu/Olimar, even Fox could handle them good enough. Lucina became more BnB than she already was, Wolf can't play his game as well... It's like the game itself was nerfed.

 

[Thinkaman]

I really think Ultimate 3.1 is worse than 3.0.
The patch deleted Pichu (will still be used in some matchups, but I really can't see the character winning a major anymore), literally crashed Olimar and removed good but not broken options from Lucina/Wolf. IMO, the only characters that were buffed in a way that can make something happen are Diddy/Ken. There is no character that was not viable only because of Pichu/Olimar, even Fox could handle them good enough. Lucina became more BnB than she already was, Wolf can't play his game as well... It's like the game itself was nerfed.

All 5 nerfed characters are still actively ranking in the top 20 in tournament results since the patch.

They aren't even bottom half, much less actually bad.

 

[New_Dumal]

All 5 nerfed characters are still actively ranking in the top 20 in tournament results since the patch.

They aren't even bottom half, much less actually bad.

Pichu viability now is, at least, debatable. The self-damage combined with nerfing some of his great moves (FSmash and Ftilt) hurts him a lot more than people who doesn't mained the character can understand. No surprise at all that Void dropped him as his main character, a needed step to someone who wants to compete at top level.

While Olimar still a very strong character, the shield thing is not how the shield is programmed to work, I think everyone agrees with that. Lucina/Wolf/Peach were slightly nerfed in comparison, and I agree they probably still top20, but is not like they were not beatable or something like that. I can't point one character that is really viable now and wasn't before, so I don't think this patch was an improvement at all. Maybe with more patches like that they can make the game much more balanced, weak characters all around, and boring/standard gameplay. They could bring balance raising the others to Pichu/Peach/Olimar level instead of bringing everything down.

Balance is a very harsh subject/goal to a competitive game. I know a lot of people who, as myself, doesn't value balance so much as what is possible to be done with the game itself. Melee PAL version is a better balanced game in comparison to NTSC, but it is better because of it ? I hope we can discuss this kind of stuff in balance patches threads, because how they decide to achieve balance in the game is also important.

 

[ZephyrZ]

I can't point one character that is really viable now and wasn't before, so I don't think this patch was an improvement at all.

That's the thing, viability isn't this black/white thing. There's no clear, clean line between what makes a character viable and what doesn't. A small D-smash nerf isn't going to make a bunch of other characters start winning majors, but it is going to make that specific D-smash less silly to deal with.

They could bring balance raising the others to Pichu/Peach/Olimar level instead of bringing everything down.

This is what's always proposed in balance discussions, and while it might be ideal, it is wishful thinking.
Which is more doable - nerfing ~15 top/high tiers or buffing the entire rest of the cast without accidentally overshooting on one of them?

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Let's recap Nintendo's official patch notes terminology based on what we've seen in the past. A glossary always helps.

• "attack speed" refers to startup.
• "power" or "attack power" refers to damage. In the last two patches they have just said "power"
• "Launch distance" refers to knockback.
  • "Undamaged launch distance" refers very specifically to base knockback
• "Reduced Vulnerability" refers to reduced endlag.
  • Reduced Vulnerability when Landing" refers to reduced landing lag
• "Shortened landing time" is referring to a reduction in how much of the animation forces that move's landing state. In other words, it's a more lenient autocancel window
• "Hitstun time" refers to hitlag.
  • "Hitstun Shuffle Distance" refers to a move's SDI multiplier.
• "Super armor" refers to armor, but they do not specify whether it is damage or knockback based armor.
• "invincibility" refers to invulnerability frames. As far as what we call invincibility, I don't know what term they would use.
• "Hit detection" refers to active hit frames of an attack.

Some terms mean what you think they mean, such as "launch angle" "counter detection" or "attack range".

 

[Axioms]

Let's recap Nintendo's official patch notes terminology based on what we've seen in the past. A glossary always helps.

• "attack speed" refers to startup.
• "power" or "attack power" refers to damage. In the last two patches they have just said "power"
• "Launch distance" refers to knockback.
  • "Undamaged launch distance" refers very specifically to base knockback
• "Reduced Vulnerability" refers to reduced endlag.
  • Reduced Vulnerability when Landing" refers to reduced landing lag
• "Shortened landing time" is referring to a reduction in how much of the animation forces that move's landing state. In other words, it's a more lenient autocancel window
• "Hitstun time" refers to hitlag.
  • "Hitstun Shuffle Distance" refers to a move's SDI multiplier.
• "Super armor" refers to armor, but they do not specify whether it is damage or knockback based armor.
• "invincibility" refers to invulnerability frames. As far as what we call invincibility, I don't know what term they would use.
• "Hit detection" refers to active hit frames of an attack.

Some terms mean what you think they mean, such as "launch angle" "counter detection" or "attack range".

I've noticed that there's no patch thread yet, and the update is going to drop in a few hours; shall I make a template-thread so that people can drop info there? I'm pretty sure that the mods can takeover the thread later and since things are probably going to get hectic as always, it's important to have some organization in advance.