PPMD's opinion on PM

[Thane of Blue Flames]

What amuses me about some comments we get, and I mean no offense by that, is that people often assume that we don't want their feedback. We release demoes for the key purpose of getting key feedback. There're no need for anyone to feelreticent or even intimidated. We want you to come up to us and tell us if something bothers you. We welcome it.

The second problematic thing that sometimes occur is that with the release of demos, there are sometimes design issues or balance issues that the community will find. We know what the community believes should be fixed, but while we see the game evolve in real time, most poeple only see a static build that doesn't change at all for them until the next release.

Since you know that we're reading the comments, there's a pretty high chance that we know the community's oppinion, but either haven't gotten around tweaking it, or we already have but haven't released a build with the tweak yet.

Nevertheless, the key element to keep in mind is that our demoes exist to get feedback. It's partially why we make them in the first place. Don't be afraid to be brutally honest with us when you meet us.

This game is awesome and y'all should keep being awesome.

#brutalhonesty

 

[Vigilante]

Thank you both of you.

 

[Mr.Random]

[

Thank you both of you.

Any updates on the next demo ?

 

[Daftatt]

[

Any updates on the next demo ?

complaints will be addressed and the balanced superbly refined, it is undoubtedly an improvement on the game in nearly all regards. To some up my impressions from playing it... "Pure Sex"

 

[Vigilante]

[

Any updates on the next demo ?

It will be awesome.

 

[DrinkingFood]

It will be awesome.

Will the physics be awesome? Comparatively speaking.

 

[Phaiyte]

tl;dr: It's different even though it's basically the same and I refuse to do any learning

 

[Phaiyte]

Fox
Falco
Marth
Sheik
Falcon

>top characters in Melee
>mediocre recoveries

these are the characters you see most being played, so when people say Melee is more exciting to watch than PM, i believe this is why.

you get to watch these characters with great onstage presence combo each other and when sent off stage, they have to truly fight their way back on (with mediocre recoveries that are very susceptible to being edgeguarded) So there never really is any downtime when it comes to action.

Where as being offstage in PM almost feels like taking a breather. The sense of risk and urgency is not always there, which shouldn't be the case when offstage in a platform fighter.

I hate to break it to you, but because people played mostly Melee for so long, people are ****ing BAD at edgeguarding in this game. Most of the time, a character being able to get back on stage is entirely the opponent's fault, and everyone needs to quit crying about it and GIT GUD LOL

 

[Daftatt]

I hate to break it to you, but because people played mostly Melee for so long, people are ****ing BAD at edgeguarding in this game. Most of the time, a character being able to get back on stage is entirely the opponent's fault, and everyone needs to quit crying about it and GIT GUD LOL

This man speaks the truth, as a squirtle main, every time someone makes it back on stage It's my own damn fault for not being badass enough to go for the edgeguard (or I messed it up), and I then go into my room and break something I love because THERE IS NO EXCUSE

 

[Mischief]

I think there is a need to recognize the different between something that is OP and something that is stupid. OP moves / characters are those which clearly have a distinct and strong advantage over the rest of the cast irrespective of the skill cap. Sonic was a good example of this, a fast character with an easily spamable move base which wasn't simply annoying but won tournaments consistently and dramatically. OP characters / moves I think should be nerfed, but there needs to be a very objective examination before any of this is done.

Stupid moves are totally different. Take Mario's fireballs. Mario is high tier, he's super good, but no one has showed extreme dominance with him in a game breaking fashion yet. However it is ridiculously easy to sit there and camp with fireballs. A simple strategy that requires very little skill is super effective, albeit not impossible to counter. The risk reward calculation is ridiculously biased. What made melee great is that almost every move had a time and place, but also a wrong time and place. While some things definitely were more balanced than others, as a whole melee required an extremely high level of decision making from the player in order to compete. Spamming for almost any characters is easy to punish (*cough* falco). This isn't as true for a lot of PM characters and matchups.

So while I think it is necessary to get rid of OP things to ensure a fair game, I think it's also a good idea to get rid of stupid things to ensure a fun game. Does this mean we NEED to nerf fireballs, arrows, bananas, and recoveries? No, not really. Just because Armada wins with Pit or Emukiller with Mewtwo doesn't mean that the characters are necessarily broken as we've also seen these characters lose. However often times I find myself watching PM and say to myself, "wow, that's just stupid," because frankly a lot of things are.

PM would be better if these "stupid" techniques/moves/characters were revised to require more complexity and skill with a balanced risk reward ratio.

 

[Bleck]

What made melee great is that almost every move had a time and place, but also a wrong time and place.

shines, yo

 

[Narpas_sword]

Fox
Falco
Marth
Sheik
Falcon

>top characters in Melee
>mediocre recoveries

these are the characters you see most being played, so when people say Melee is more exciting to watch than PM, i believe this is why.

you get to watch these characters with great onstage presence combo each other and when sent off stage, they have to truly fight their way back on (with mediocre recoveries that are very susceptible to being edgeguarded) So there never really is any downtime when it comes to action.

Where as being offstage in PM almost feels like taking a breather. The sense of risk and urgency is not always there, which shouldn't be the case when offstage in a platform fighter.

And herein lies some of the problem.

i BET the people ******** about 'PM TOO MUCH RECOVER' mainly stick to these characters.

because if they used the characters with good recovery, theyd jump off stage to challenge the others who are trying to fight. because if you play as someone with good recovery, you can go further out to cut off the angle of recovery.

 

[DrinkingFood]

You know at this point I'm starting to think it would be kinda nice to see big recovery nerfs in the next patch.
Primarily so people will stop ******** so much about it. It probably wouldn't help that much, melee players will still complain, but then we'd have the "wow recoveries were already nerfed, what more do you want scrub" card to play.

 

[| Kailex |]

People will always complain, no matter what. Cant you just ignore them already.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Did you even read the third sentence

 

[| Kailex |]

Yep, just wanted say it.

 

[Joe73191]

The constant potential for nerfs and changes are what is keeping PM from becoming amazing. Also what I find interesting is that PM is what Brawl should have been. If Brawl was put out and it was what PM is from the start it would have been touted as the best game to date. Better than Melee. It would have been bigger and more popular and it would have been the main game in the tourney scene. Everyone wanted to like Brawl but couldn't.

PM makes Brawl what it should have been. People wouldn't be complaining about it because Brawl had obscene recoveries and spam-able moves but people didn't care, they just wanted the physics back to melee. Now the physics are back and people complain about recoveries. I don't know if it is just that "not melee, not good" or if its the idea that since it can be updated people will keep demanding updates no matter how good it is. If it couldn't be updated no one could ask for nerfs and people would have to live with it. They would have to adapt instead of taking the lazy way out and saying "I don't want to learn to deal with this so change it." I know I have posted and repeated myself a lot and I am sorry, but I am strongly against character changes, except MAYBE returning Marth, Peach, Fox, Falco and Shiek to their exact, identical melee counterparts, if its even possible.

 

[MLGF]

This is essentially the first year, not even, where PM has the entire roster and has garnered a huge scene.
So people who complain about patches should look at Arc Systems, Capcom, etc and notice that many games get a one year patch.

Now granted, PM has been going on for a while but this is the first time we're seeing huge results.

 

[Daftatt]

Frankly I would like to point out that in P:M there is nothing, I repeat NOT ONE THING, not one move, not one tech, not one strategy, that cannot be countered. Your inability to adapt to an opponent is your own shortcoming, not the game, this is the definition of scrub. If an opponent finds a move that they feel is an excellent option and spam it then your job is to take advantage of their lack of mixup, your reads become easy at this point! There is a competitive fighting game concept called yomi levels that I think everyone should learn about. http://www.sirlin.net/articles/yomi-layer-3-knowing-the-mind-of-the-opponent.html

I frankly don't understand complaining at all about P:M, at this many months into v3 pretty much everything wrong with the game has been taken into account by the PMBR, just develop your character fundamentals and don't abuse what you think is "cheap" or "stupid" because it's probably not going to be after the next patch, and GOOD GOD, after all this belly aching I don't want to start hearing people complain about nerfs in a few months (or whenever the patch drops).

Keep playing the game and have patience, and remember in a game with 41 characters and 10+ stages there is always a counter-strategy, a next yomi level

 

[Deleted member]

Nevertheless, the key element to keep in mind is that our demoes exist to get feedback. It's partially why we make them in the first place. Don't be afraid to be brutally honest with us when you meet us.

diddy is too good
mario is too good
pit is too good
ganon is not good enough
squirtle is not good enough
downthrow chaingrabs are inherently broken, so mario and ganon should lose theirs
fox's upsmash is too good, but the rest of him is probably fine
olimar is surprisingly well done and is fine as is
pk fire is definitely not okay as it is currently
people complain about falco, but aside from a few MUs like DK, he's probably fine
link's boomerang is powerful but fine as is
marth doesn't need any more kill moves
snake and mewtwo are probably broken, but i don't know how to fix them
please still consider the report i submitted to cmart about zelda some months ago
sheik doesn't need a chain tether, but i personally would still like one anyway, she already dominates the edge so why not
falcon gets ruined by proxy of being a fastfaller without a shine, but i don't know how to fix that
peach is literally perfection
it would be cool to form a non-developer PMBR for knowledgeable players so we can make a standardized tournament stage list

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

I'm a PPMD fan, and a surprising amount of that has to do with how good his PM Marth was at Tipped Off 9.

Dude's word isn't gospel, though. He likes the game he's been playing for 12 years better, I'm really not that surprised Just disappointed that he doesn't see a point to playing PM because his Marth owns

 

[kaizo13]

@ J Joe73191
@ D Daftatt

you realize you're complaining about people complaining right?

if you think the pmbr makes changes based on complaints and not by extensively testing things out themselves, then you are sadly mistaken


@Umbreon
you might wanna add Lucas to that "too good" list

Edit: also that whole give sheik a tether thing almost made ur whole post invalid lol. quit playing man

 

[Hinichii.ez.™]

lol. quit playing man

/thread

 

[Vigilante]

Of course, we listen, but that doesn't mean we do everything people tell us. I've heard pro players propose things that when we tried to implement them were game-breaking, sometimes in a worse manner than Metakngiht was to Brawl. Still, their feedback is important and needs to at the very least be taken into account. Sometimes, we won't take their proposed solution after testing it out but we'll instead opt to address the issue using another angle. There is some trial and error there for sure. The advantage with what I can tell you about how the PMBR operates is that we don't have that "We know best" mentality than some developers have. We know we can in fact not get things right the first time around and our willingness to experiment with other designs should in my humble oppinion encourage people to view us less as a separate body from the community and more as an inherent part of it.

Even in the pro scene though, people have opposing viewpoints. It would be impossible to please everyone 100%. One thing that pro player A agrees with might not be as strongly appreciated by pro player B. For example, if you have a main, most of your exposure comes from the perspective of playing this character, so while you may have a lot of knowledge with how the character plays, you may not have the perspective of someone who has to fight against it.

Dr. PeePee to me at least seems like a very reasonable person, so I would advise against the fanbase lashing out at him for attempting constructive criticism. I don't feel any reason to be defensive about this since he's doing this in good faith. Again, come and talk to us buddy.

BTW Umbreon, I can't tell you what happens in the Backroom, but I haven't been on Smashboards a lot and I've heard of your opinions already, so don't worry, we listen to what people think. However, for everyone in general, if you have concerns, I would propose elaborating on them. I often hear "This character is too good/too bad" but they don't explain why they think that.

 

[Narpas_sword]

You can tell people are **** at edgeguarding when someone jumps offstage to land a basic Dair meteor to kill and the commentators erupt like sliced bread just got invented.

 

[Chesstiger2612]

I just wanted to add that pro players don't necessarily know what would make a game better. Two completely different things.
Also I'm pretty sure the PMBR can easily see who has good suggestions / knows much about the game and who just says "Buff A, Nerf B"

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

You can tell people are **** at edgeguarding when someone jumps offstage to land a basic Dair meteor to kill and the commentators erupt like sliced bread just got invented.

Sounds like Xanadu shouting about diddy nerfs because he managed to hit a meteor lol. And I appreciate pp's opinion, and it should always have weight, but (A FALCO MAIN IS COMPLAINING ABOUT SAFE SPAMMABLE MOVES!!!) I don't care how amazing he is as a player, that s#*t is hilarious.

It would greatly help if he went into further detail of what moves he considers over centralized and spammable, without that, the irony is just funny, and hard to take seriously since falco is the most bashed character in melee. Also it isn't really as helpful to the pm team as it could be with suggestions. They can't work on what they don't know.

 

[Vigilante]

To be honest though, I've agreed with some complaints people have with Project M. It's good to keep an open mind. However, I wouldn't berate Dr. Peepee for being a Falco main. He is one of the most creative Falco users out there and no amount of "stupid moves" could convince me that most of his victories are not heavily attributable to his talent. Furthermore, he's probably one of the least spammy Falco players around.

Now, I won't take any positions in this debate, but I would ask the community to exercise some restrain here. I don't think Falco mains enjoy their accomplishments being belittled in that manner. I respect any player who plays characters beyond what most can accomplish.

 

[Bleck]

I don't think anyone is trying to diminish PP's prowess at the game, but I think it's folly to pretend that Falco is not a character who's strength is based on stuff he can throw out quickly and safely (i.e shines and lasers). "Spammy" is kind of a vague word to be using, but I doubt anyone could convince me that any professional Falco player could win an entire match without using a single shine or laser.

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

I don't think anyone is trying to diminish PP's prowess at the game, but I think it's folly to pretend that Falco is not a character who's strength is based on stuff he can throw out quickly and safely (i.e shines and lasers). "Spammy" is kind of a vague word to be using, but I doubt anyone could convince me that any professional Falco player could win an entire match without using a single shine or laser.

Would it really surprise you if pp managed to win sets with only bair dair and hard read forward smashes. He could still beat over 90% of the melee community without shine or lasers, it just becomes important at that top 4%.

 

[Bleck]

Would it really surprise you if pp managed to win some sets with only bair dair and hard read forward smashes.

Yes.

 

[Mischief]

I wasn't trying to imply that Falco was broken because of lasers. PP isn't just Falco master, he is the Falco god. Even if Falco's lasers are probably the best projectile in the game it still takes a very deep understanding of the game/tech skill/reads to play Falco well. Not broken at all.

And yeah, PP could beat me with just dair

 

[wiiztec]

[

Any updates on the next demo ?

I heard it's going to have a nonstandard naming convention

 

[Empyrean]

It will finally receive it's rightful name as Project: Melee.

 

[Phan7om]

Id be so down for recovery nerfs, not in the way you'd intentionally think. I just want to see how everyone would react.

I also totally agree with PP about the "spammable moves", my only major dislike about this game.

 

[Deleted member]

@Umbreon
you might wanna add Lucas to that "too good" list

nah lucas is fine tbh people just don't cheese him out on his approaches enough.

and thanks @ Vigilante

 

[Mr.Random]

I was going to ask to the PMBR if butt grabs are gone in the next patch? Please?

 

[Narpas_sword]

I was going to ask to the PMBR if butt grabs are gone in the next patch? Please?

 

[otheusrex]

I'f it's not too late, I'd like to get my two cents in about PM recoveries.

I'm glad ChessTiger brought up that the PMBR's guiding principles has something to do with why so many characters have good recoveries in this game. If most characters have decent recoveries, than offstage edge-guarding does in fact yield more reward than onstage edge-guarding. In this regard, I think the PMBR more or less accomplished what they were trying to. I think that since almost all the characters have what would in melee be considered better than average or even good recoveries, it suggests that the PMBR was thinking of the new good recovery metagame as just a blanket feature for everyone across the board, and thus, when redesigning characters, they simply buffed all recoveries to varying degrees. It does make the very few outright bad recoveries seem a lot more conspicuous, however.

Which leads me to my main point, that how good or bad a character's recovery is is a crucial part of balancing that character's capabilities. In melee, it was a general rule that the character's with the best recoveries were floaties. This was an important advantage for them because they are light and easily knocked off stage. On the flip side, the fast fallers comparably had much worse or limited recovery options off stage, which was an important counterbalance to the fact that they generally had far better stage presence with better approaches and combo options.

I'd say this is just a general trade-off rule in smash: the stronger the stage presence of a character, the worse the recovery should be. Of course, there can be exceptions to the rule, but the rule should be carefully considered and only broken for good reasons. Fox's recovery, for example, is definitely not bad, and in some ways it's actually pretty good, and since it's universally agreed that fox has excellent stage presence with great approaches and combo options, he breaks the rule. (which actually might just be another example of why fox is simply the best character) But at least with fox, he has the added weakness of being extremely susceptible to being combo'd and knocked off stage. In PM, however, I feel there are certain characters who instead of diverging from the trade off for good reasons, were simply not allowed to have bad recoveries when their stage presence would normally demand it, such as diddy, lucas, and sonic.

 

[Bleck]

You're overvaluing the existence of poor recoveries - the problem isn't that certain characters have recoveries that are too good, it's that people are too used to top-tier Melee characters having relatively poor ones. The offstage and edgeguarding games can only grow more interesting if people actually have multiple choices of actions to take as both the defending player (as previously argued by people in favor of edgehogging) and the recovering player.

Instead of complaining about Diddy's up special being too good, people should be complaining about other characters having recoveries that aren't good enough - note how, in restoring the Melee top tiers to their Melee selves in the transition from Brawl, their recoveries were generally reverted (read; nerfed) from the overall buffed versions they had in Brawl (most notably, Fox, Falco and Marth).