People are worried about Project M dying, what do you think?

[N0PE]

what happened to Wolf this patch?

Not sure if rhetorical but one thing is he no longer gets a jump for hitting a successful Side+B (energems), which mainly prevents Wolf from going as deep to finish a KO.

 

[Banjodorf]

Not sure if rhetorical but one thing is he no longer gets a jump for hitting a successful Side+B (energems), which mainly prevents Wolf from going as deep to finish a KO.

I was actually wondering. And ouch, that's a bummer.

Thanks!

 

[Terotrous]

That was your response to Strong Bad saying 3.5 has had an overall positive reception among PM players. Aren't you basically doing the same thing though by saying the overall recovery complaints towards 3.02 were just a handful of Melee supporters (basically implying overall everyone was fine with general recoveries in 3.02)?

Sure, we're both just stating what we've generally heard from other PM players. What I've heard has mostly been negative. That suggests to me that the reception is mixed at best.

However, I haven't seen anyone claim that the adjustments to Lucas and M2 weren't warranted, on here or anywhere else, which is the basis for my claim that everyone was in agreement about that.

I'm pretty sure the rationale was that in the new 3.5 environment, some characters could easily become new Lucas' and Mewtwos if left unchanged.

I don't really see how. If a character wasn't on the same level as Lucas in 3.02, they wouldn't just suddenly become that powerful after Lucas got nerfed. Assuming all other characters stayed mostly the same, they could continue to deal with those characters the same way they did before. Sure, someone else would take Lucas's place as "the best in the game", but since that was someone who was formerly weaker than Lucas at least the cast is getting closer together.

No matter what is done, someone is going to be alienated. I'd say 3.5 really didn't alienate that many people though.

I don't know how you define many but I've seen a number of people who either were alienated, or at least lost interest in the game.

The way you describe PM's health post 3.5, you'd think we were Melee post-Brawl. We really aren't. Even with Apex trying to kill us.

We'll see I guess. Reports of attendance dropping substantially and tournaments not being streamed doesn't sound too good.

Not sure if rhetorical but one thing is he no longer gets a jump for hitting a successful Side+B (energems), which mainly prevents Wolf from going as deep to finish a KO.

This is a perfect example of a really bad change. Why would you do this? The whole reason that mechanic existed was to make playing Wolf hype and fun to play. It certainly wasn't OP (very few people ever used it successfully), so what was the reason for its removal?

This just sends the message that you don't want the game to be fun.

 

[Narpas_sword]

This is a perfect example of a really bad change. Why would you do this? The whole reason that mechanic existed was to make playing Wolf hype and fun to play. It certainly wasn't OP (very few people ever used it successfully), so what was the reason for its removal?

from standardtoaster: "It's just making it work like almost all specials that send into special fall in this game. The general rule is that if it goes into special fall it will eat your jump."

 

[Terotrous]

from standardtoaster: "It's just making it work like almost all specials that send into special fall in this game. The general rule is that if it goes into special fall it will eat your jump."

That's dumb though, there was a good reason that move was an exception.

Also, doesn't this not apply to specials that only go into special fall on whiff?

 

[Narpas_sword]

doesnt seem dumb to me...

 

[Rizner]

Homogenization for the sake of homogenization is dumb. Why can't characters have unique traits like that?

 

[Rᴏb]

Because it was unnecessary, considering he could and still can get to the ledge with an upb 90% of the time. It was a slight nerf to the range in which he could go for the side b punish, which is a perfectly acceptable one given how strong of a punish game Wolf still has and how reliable the side b punish still is. I do agree that homogenization for the sake of homogenization is dumb to an extent.

 

[Narpas_sword]

Homogenization for the sake of homogenization is dumb. Why can't characters have unique traits like that?

its a powerful offstage Kill move using a special that on hit allows you to regain your recovery move where you'd end up helpless if you missed.


Who else has that?

 

[Rizner]

Because it was unnecessary, considering he could and still can get to the ledge with an upb 90% of the time. It was a slight nerf to the range in which he could go for the side b punish, which is a perfectly acceptable one given how strong of a punish game Wolf still has and how reliable the side b punish still is. I do agree that homogenization for the sake of homogenization is dumb to an extent.

We need more explanations like this.

its a powerful offstage Kill move using a special that on hit allows you to regain your recovery move where you'd end up helpless if you missed.


Who else has that?

Who else has that does not matter. Donkey Kong can cargo throw people, and it is possible to stage spike from a throw. Just because nobody else can means nothing

because 'nobody else can' = 'unique' which is exactly what you asked for...

At this point I'm not sure what you're trying to say. I'm saying that if something is unique or that no other character can do something, it doesn't matter in terms of balance or design. When something is changed just because it's different, I disagree with the idea.

Some moves need changing - it's like saying you don't like someone because they eat different food and they're an ass. You don't like them because they're an ass - the food they eat doesn't matter.

 

[Narpas_sword]

because 'nobody else can' = 'unique' which is exactly what you asked for...

i.e.

You said: 'why cant character have more unique tools'
I point out it is unique.
Then you say 'who cares if it's unique'


Hodor.

 

[Magus420]

It's a recovery change. Being able to recover with side-b (a recovery move that also hits like a truck mind you) but still preserve your jump afterwards if you get hit out of it was not really appropriate for the character going into 3.5. That comes up far more often than mega-deep side-b finishes that you'd also need your jump to make it back.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

It's perfectly fine for characters to have unique traits, but you have to set a standard to give the game structure, so there will be attributes that don't change for anybody.

Look at it like this, you don't see any character in this game attacking out of an airdodge, not having a shield in place of something else, or losing a grab for something more unique. That's because there's an established set of rules the characters in the game follow to give it structure. If it didn't, well the game would be all over the place, and it would cease to be project m, character shenanigans the game would be in it's place.

So at the end of the day, wolf losing the ability to double jump after a side b confirm, with the fact that he can still use his upb, not to mention the fact that he can shorten it, go through stage edges, and angle it, is really a non issue. Honestly it surprises me whenever I hear people complain about it, as that move is still amazing.

 

[GabPR]

its a powerful offstage Kill move using a special that on hit allows you to regain your recovery move where you'd end up helpless if you missed.


Who else has that?

Sonic,s new homing/blast attack does, and its still a good move.

 

[metaXzero]

Sure, we're both just stating what we've generally heard from other PM players. What I've heard has mostly been negative. That suggests to me that the reception is mixed at best.

Fair enough I guess. I doubt 3.5 just being 3.02 with minor changes or no patch would've been so much more well recieved.

However, I haven't seen anyone claim that the adjustments to Lucas and M2 weren't warranted, on here or anywhere else, which is the basis for my claim that everyone was in agreement about that.

I've found plenty of people griping about 3.5 Lucas changes around the PM reddit and I feel like the Lucas character board here would have plenty of griping too

I don't really see how. If a character wasn't on the same level as Lucas in 3.02, they wouldn't just suddenly become that powerful after Lucas got nerfed. Assuming all other characters stayed mostly the same, they could continue to deal with those characters the same way they did before. Sure, someone else would take Lucas's place as "the best in the game", but since that was someone who was formerly weaker than Lucas at least the cast is getting closer together.

It's really simple. With Mewtwo and Lucas no longer centralizing the game around who can beat them, people will go explore other characters. This exploration can lead to characters being discovered to be much better than previously thought. Especially since 3.5 is a new enviroment with a heavier emphasis on edgegaurding. It was ultimately the PMDT making changes based on speculation of how 3.5 might become. Some hit and some miss.

I don't know how you define many but I've seen a number of people who either were alienated, or at least lost interest in the game.

And I see many weeklies and monthlies pressing on as normal. You should've seen Melee post-Brawl for a real dire state.

We'll see I guess. Reports of attendance dropping substantially and tournaments not being streamed doesn't sound too good.

As said, this is less about people being unsatisfied with 3.5 and more about Smash 4 being out. You even admitted that some people said they were just using PM as a holdover till Smash 4. And the streaming situation is from Apex (Alex Strife mainly, though I'm still iffy on how the rest of the staff views PM) forcing qualifiers to not stream it. It's not about massive dwindling interest in PM.

 

[GabPR]

Fair enough I guess. I doubt 3.5 just being 3.02 with minor changes or no patch would've been so much more well recieved.

I've found plenty of people griping about 3.5 Lucas changes around the PM reddit and I feel like the Lucas character board here would have plenty of griping too



It's really simple. With Mewtwo and Lucas no longer centralizing the game around who can beat them, people will go explore other characters. This exploration can lead to characters being discovered to be much better than previously thought. Especially since 3.5 is a new enviroment with a heavier emphasis on edgegaurding. It was ultimately the PMDT making changes based on speculation of how 3.5 might become. Some hit and some miss.




And I see many weeklies and monthlies pressing on as normal. You should've seen Melee post-Brawl for a real dire state.


As said, this is less about people being unsatisfied with 3.5 and more about Smash 4 being out. You even admitted that some people said they were just using PM as a holdover till Smash 4. And the streaming situation is from Apex (Alex Strife mainly, though I'm still iffy on how the rest of the staff views PM) forcing qualifiers to not stream it. It's not about massive dwindling interest in PM.

My only worry is that, while not all may be bad, people may get careless and not really do anything about it. Im sure the PM teams is hard at work, but in order for the hard times o pass quicker we should all support our local scenes as best as we can.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I actually agree, I much preferred MvsC1. Even though it was still full of infinites at least with assists being limited it was somewhat sane. However, when you look at the popularity of "mahvel" we're clearly in the minority.



The thing is I feel like this is what people want to play. You brought up Mario, for example. Yes, he's super good in 3.02. However, while there are a couple people crying for Mario nerfs, the general reaction seemed more like "Yes! They finally made Mario into a good character!" A lot of people have been waiting 15 years for Mario to finally reach that level.

If you look at Melee, there's only a few character archetypes that are viable (either you've got to have great pokes or great mobility), and yet that game still remains popular because I think those are the types of characters that most people want to play. Sure, we could tone down Fox, Falco, Sheik, Marth, and Jiggs, so that everyone was viable, but would people enjoy the game as much? I really don't know. I feel like the extent of what those characters were capable of is what gave the game its longevity. In PM 3.02, almost every character is like that, which means you can pick up any character and have a blast. I think that's really something that people enjoyed about the game.

As for Ganondorf, I admit, my solution to the problem was just to buff him more. I think if you gave him the Wizard's Dropkick from Smash4, he'd be a lot more viable. He doesn't have enough of a power advantage compared to more mobile characters? Make him more powerful. Remove the ability to tech side B so that Side B -> DTilt -> Jab is a guaranteed combo and suddenly he's tons scarier.

Is this power creep? Probably. But as long as the cast remains appreciably different from each other (which, IMO, they do, due largely in part to Smash's highly dynamic neutral game) it probably hasn't gone too far yet.

Lol :bro fist: my fav is also MvC1.

For the rest I gotta be real here.

I know why people like power, it's the Irelia issue from in league of legends. Yes she takes skill, a lot, yes she has a lot if options, but she offers little to no counter play when played at a top level because she does so much.

A lot of characters, not just the top, were approaching this problem.

Yes they felt good, but for game health they were atrocious.

This is the biggest issue with Fox and Falco still, lots of pier, little to no weaknesses unless the PM dev team makes someone stronger.

 

[MechWarriorNY]

They die in one-two comboes if you stay on them.
Much of this discussion is valid but no johns pls~

 

[Mr.Pickle]

They die in one-two comboes if you stay on them.
Much of this discussion is valid but no johns pls~

Staying on them is pretty difficult when they both have undeniably the best neutral in the game, fox more so than falco especially in pm. Like they do the exact same thing you want to do them, high damage strings into death or early gimps, better and faster. So honestly, that argument of them being death touched isn't something that keeps them from being top tier.

Don't get me wrong though, that with the combination of their high technical learning curve, keeps them from being brawl meta knight, 2.1/2.5 ( I forget which, might be both) sonic, and the current smash 4 diddy, but they're still undeniably the best characters in the game, and they impact the meta heavily.

 

[dy831532sssfjhhggb2224523]

While spacies are powerful, I'm glad they aren't as prevalent as they are in Melee. Being ported with some direct changes to make them easier to combat, and being indirectly affected by stages and the cast of Project M also helps. Even if their power is a problem to the community, one of the selling points (would it be a selling point if PM's free?) is that spacie mains still have a powerful character, while non-spacie players have an easier time with them than they would in Melee. My favorite character, Roy, was already good at fighting spacies in Melee compared to him fighting some other characters, and being a viable character here while spacies are brought down a bit is one of the reasons I love PM so much.

I can't think of a good way to fix them, so I'm just being optimistic.

 

[wiiztec]

I really dislike it when people complain about 3.5 balance. It is the best version of Project M I have ever played. I hated 3.02. I never watched it on stream and that one time I did I saw Emukiller beating M2K and Armada and other top players then ADMITTING he sucks and its the character..

You can't exactly give it a fair assessment if you hardly played or even watched it now can you

 

[dy831532sssfjhhggb2224523]

While he only watched it on stream once, he didn't say how much he watched videos of 3.02 on YouTube, or local players, etc. Even if he hated it, we don't know how much he played it, either. Possibly several dozen or hundred hours before he came to the conclusion that he truly hated 3.02.

With that said, his only experience watching it could be on that stream, and he could have played it for an hour at most. There's just not much that can be dug from that quote.

 

[MechWarriorNY]

Staying on them is pretty difficult

I just said "no johns".

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

So, instead of complaining about what we got, how about we actually try to find a solution to the stagnant scene problem?
It's not like Smash 4 is going to sink like Brawl anytime soon, so, any ideas?

 

[Blank Mauser]

Personally I loved 3.02 and thought it would be amazing to see how the game would've played out if 3.5 was simply an overall nerf to recoveries.

I love 3.5 as well, but its not as fun to me. It was always more fun not only to feel powerful, but also to finally take down characters who felt "too powerful." I liked PM having its own set of top tiers.

Overall though I don't think anything happening to PM is a result of the actual game, but has and always will just be a result of the community playing it. For example, why should a Melee player pick up a PM character when they have a character they've put years into already that is still very very good? This lessens the amount of great players who could be playing PM, rather than just playing Melee IN PM. Some crowds will obviously be turned off by this, and it will be missed potential. Then you have another camp who will merely drop their characters because there are less shiny things attracting them. So you're essentially encouraged in many ways to play Melee characters. Not only are they really good and have years of metagame development, but it seems you worry less and less about changes. That's not to say that the game isn't interesting but simply that people aren't putting the time into it to find out. And I feel its always been that way to some extent.

 

[Terotrous]

I've found plenty of people griping about 3.5 Lucas changes around the PM reddit and I feel like the Lucas character board here would have plenty of griping too

Perhaps about the specific changes received, but is anyone really saying he was fine as he was? I certainly haven't seen it.

It's really simple. With Mewtwo and Lucas no longer centralizing the game around who can beat them, people will go explore other characters. This exploration can lead to characters being discovered to be much better than previously thought.

So nerf them AFTER they prove to be a problem. You can't preemptively nerf everyone because someone might have hidden tech, that's insane.

As said, this is less about people being unsatisfied with 3.5 and more about Smash 4 being out.

There were people unsatisfied with Smash 4, too, especially with Smash4 1.0. If 3.5 was a really strong release I think it would have held onto more of its playerbase.

I know why people like power, it's the Irelia issue from in league of legends. Yes she takes skill, a lot, yes she has a lot if options, but she offers little to no counter play when played at a top level because she does so much.

This is the biggest issue with Fox and Falco still, lots of pier, little to no weaknesses unless the PM dev team makes someone stronger.

I didn't really get that impression from 3.02. If we want to talk spacies, for example, many characters have chaingrabs or other combos that are either spacie-specific or go on much longer on spacies. There are other characters where this is true, for example Ivysaur has great space control but if you do get in on her she has a really combo-friendly weight and fall speed and she's kind of a wide target, so you can usually punish pretty hard.

PM (and Melee) in general tend to be high risk, high reward games, so as long as characters don't shut everyone else down in the neutral there's always some way to approach the matchup. Even with Lucas and Mewtwo, you could still fight them and land hits and kills as almost every character, they'd just tend to beat you in the damage race since they were pretty safe and killed early. That kind of thing isn't too hard to patch.

 

[Blank Mauser]

So nerf them AFTER they prove to be a problem. You can't preemptively nerf everyone because someone might have hidden tech, that's insane.

This is something I can somewhat agree with. Sirlin made a great article on this centering around "Solvability." Which can be found here:

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/solvability

I feel like PM missed a great discovery phase of hype moments. Where we get to see certain things we always thought to be strong but no one ever fully utilized them, get played out. I actually always complained about things on this board thinking "This is clearly broken. Why aren't people going out and winning tournaments with this?." Well now a lot of those complaints have been addressed and they're gone. Now I'll never get to see people go out and win tournaments with them, or find out if those strategies were even beatable. Then again we also could've just saw more and more years of Mewtwo so who knows.

Either way if you think PM is dying your best bet at keeping it alive is to go out, play it, show everyone how fun and deep of a game it is etc. That has always been my goal in picking up new characters. Because its always satisfying when you play someone and they say "I didn't know that character could do that." It's easy to get caught up in our arrogance and figure that everyone has already figured everything about the game out. But things are rarely so simple.

 

[Terotrous]

Either way if you think PM is dying your best bet at keeping it alive is to go out, play it, show everyone how fun and deep of a game it is etc.

If it gets to be fun again I'd definitely go back to playing it. Despite picking up a new green monster in Smash 4 I still miss my Ivysaur. Ultimately though right now I'm just much more into Smash 4 for most of the reasons I've described.

So, instead of complaining about what we got, how about we actually try to find a solution to the stagnant scene problem?
It's not like Smash 4 is going to sink like Brawl anytime soon, so, any ideas?

The answer is really obvious, it's new characters. That's why 3.0 became so big, people saw Mewtwo and Roy and they were like "holy crap, this is so cool, must try this out". As long as 4.0 happens sometime before 2019 and adds at least a couple new characters I'm sure it'll see at least a brief resurgence in popularity.

 

[GabPR]

This is something I can somewhat agree with. Sirlin made a great article on this centering around "Solvability." Which can be found here:

http://www.sirlin.net/articles/solvability

I feel like PM missed a great discovery phase of hype moments. Where we get to see certain things we always thought to be strong but no one ever fully utilized them, get played out. I actually always complained about things on this board thinking "This is clearly broken. Why aren't people going out and winning tournaments with this?." Well now a lot of those complaints have been addressed and they're gone. Now I'll never get to see people go out and win tournaments with them, or find out if those strategies were even beatable. Then again we also could've just saw more and more years of Mewtwo so who knows.

Either way if you think PM is dying your best bet at keeping it alive is to go out, play it, show everyone how fun and deep of a game it is etc. That has always been my goal in picking up new characters. Because its always satisfying when you play someone and they say "I didn't know that character could do that." It's easy to get caught up in our arrogance and figure that everyone has already figured everything about the game out. But things are rarely so simple.

But that would just end up punishing the player more. Most nerfs throught PM have been because someone discovered something and it became op. These changes were made for the health of the game, but the player could have felt dismotivated for these nerfs.

Taking most of the bs away right off the bat is way better since on the long run it minimizes the amount of nerfs/bufs that have to be made in future patches.

 

[Smolder]

There's places that can continue on without being affected too much, but I know for sure that the scene's effectively dead where I'm at now. If I had any time to do something about it, I'd love to but that's not something I can afford to do. As far as I can tell, Paragon is PM's swan song for Florida (at least CFL).

Are you telling me that Gator Gaming isn't doing any streaming anymore? It seemed as though they were decently active and they had some very strong talent PM-wise.

 

[GP&B]

I don't know about Gainesville or Tampa, but Orlando specifically has stopped.

 

[metaXzero]

So nerf them AFTER they prove to be a problem. You can't preemptively nerf everyone because someone might have hidden tech, that's insane.

But preemptive nerfs and buffs are exactly what happens in game development when the goal is of a healthy competitive game. They make educated guesses on what might become harmful (or at least undesirable) to the game and what won't. Simply letting things go to fix later gives us things like 2.5 Sonic, 2.6 Ivysaur, and 3.02 M2 and Lucas. Of course the flipside is going overboard and giving us things like 3.5 Olimar. It's hard work and it's difficult finding that balance. And things get even messier if you want to shift the overall design in a different direction

There were people unsatisfied with Smash 4, too, especially with Smash4 1.0. If 3.5 was a really strong release I think it would have held onto more of its playerbase.

How many players would it need to hold onto in order to convince you that 3.5 was a success rather than a failure or mixed bag? Brawl had ALOT more people disappointed in it than Smash 4 and yet competitive Melee still ended up at death's door for alot of that year while PM is mostly holding it strong in alot of areas. We can talk about what could've been done with 3.5 all day, but the fact is that Smash 4 was going to take a chunk out of PM's playerbase no matter what was done with the game.

 

[Terotrous]

But preemptive nerfs and buffs are exactly what happens in game development when the goal is of a healthy competitive game.

Yes, during game development. Not post-release though. Once the game is out you basically just have to let the metagame develop on its own, and only tweak it when absolutely necessary, like I was saying in a previous post.

How many players would it need to hold onto in order to convince you that 3.5 was a success rather than a failure or mixed bag?

I don't really have an exact number, but I'd expect to see a bit more of a slow decline than an instant drop if the patch was successful.

Brawl had ALOT more people disappointed in it than Smash 4 and yet competitive Melee still ended up at death's door for alot of that year while PM is mostly holding it strong in alot of areas.

I think we're in a pretty different place now than we were when Melee came out though. A lot has changed in the community since then - streams are way more prevalent, Melee is still being played, we already went through the disappointment that was Brawl, Smash has found some degree of acceptance within the FGC, etc.

I don't think it's quite an apples to apples comparison.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

I just said "no johns".

If I was johning, I would be making excuses of my short comings against them, but all I said it's much more difficult to just "stay on them" than you're implying. I really could care less if I have to play against a space animal, I'll be glad to bop them and take their money, but they're still difficult to get in on.

 

[Bleck]

you don't see any character in this game attacking out of an airdodge,

http://projectmgame.com/en/characters/lucario

 

[Mr.Pickle]

He doesn't attack out of his air dodge...but he is an exception to some standards, I guess that's where you're going with that. That still doesn't change my point though. Even lucario, a character that they introduced to have numerous exceptions to smash rules, still follows basic standards that everyone does.

 

[Bleck]

"even this character that has unique things that break rules doesn't have unique things that break rules"

 

[Smolder]

http://projectmgame.com/en/characters/lucario

I don't think Lucario can attack out of air dodge, man. Most of his cancellation mechanics require him to either get a hit, cancel his down-B with aura, or cancel his up-B with aura.
Edit: I guess you could consider his down-B to be an air dodge, though. I mean, it does give him a short amount of invincibility, if I recall correctly.

 

[Mr.Pickle]

It's perfectly fine for characters to have unique traits, but you have to set a standard to give the game structure, so there will be attributes that don't change for anybody.

That means that there are going to be some things that don't change on everyone, but it also means that there will be things that are unique to that one character, like the example of dk having cargo throw. Lucario certainly doesn't follow some rules that the other characters follow, but that doesn't mean he's doing it to the point that ruins the structure of the game.

"even this character that has unique things that break rules doesn't have unique things that break rules"

This is a really bad argument and you're putting words in my mouth.

 

[mimgrim]

Yes, during game development. Not post-release though. Once the game is out you basically just have to let the metagame develop on its own, and only tweak it when absolutely necessary, like I was saying in a previous post.

If you want to get technical. Project M can be considered to still be in the development process and that were are just playing beta versions of the game. :L

"even this character that has unique things that break rules doesn't have unique things that break rules"

This is more like a case of "the exception that proves the rule".