Project M Social Thread

[Crispy4001]

Well, I've said it before and I'll say it again. I think that it does need to be toned down a little bit from Melee, but closer to the Melee duration than Brawl. Melee's does seem excessively long at times, like in Jigglypuff's 100% roll (IIRC that's the one) where she rolls up into a ball and onto the stage, but there's a point in the animation where she's literally not touching the ledge with any part of her body but it still counts as occupying it. lol. (As a Jigglypuff player I love abusing this though, hehe.) But in general, I can see how it needs to be shortened in some cases.

On the other hand though, occupying the ledge to edgeguard is a legitimate tactic in Melee that required at least a little bit of skill (think of most casual players who just hang on the ledge and then get hit by people's recoveries; if you're rolling to edgeguard then you're already "advanced"). That's why I think that it needs to be closer to Melee, since the project is aiming for "Melee-like" mechanics even if they're not exact copies of them. 75% does sound like a good average balance, but of course tweaking it on a per-animation basis is the best way to go (and something that I can't judge without playing the game).

Mostly agree.

I don't put much stock into the visuals argument. Don't really care how it looks, personally. What's most important about it in Melee is that it is a viable tactic. It not only changes edge guarding itself, but also the way you're forced to think about recovery. If you're in a position to be edgeguarded like that, you should be in heightened danger of losing your stock. It's a dynamic that is important to Melee, and I think it should be important to P:M as well.

The question shouldn't be if it looks to-the-frame realistic. The question should be if ledge occupancy gimps should take more skill, timing and most importantly, require better reading of your opponent than they do in Melee. Any changes should be based on that.

And yes, I think they should. The game would be more exciting and dynamic if the recovering player had ever-so-slightly more wiggle room to escape almost certain doom.

 

[Wavebuster]

I have been -opinionated- against adding any more ledge occupancy for PM compared to Brawl pretty much ever since I've been on board. I've said it many times and my thoughts are so scattered right now that I'm not going to bother writing an organized essay and will instead mark off my points in no particular order.

From my many years playing Melee, what I noticed is that people always found full Melee ledge occupancy to be retardedly long and just silently dealt with it like Sheik without really saying anything about it. Now that the subject is actually brought out in the open, we have vocal complaints about Melee's ledge occupancy, and it's certainly not the most pristine of Melee's mechanics.

Playing so long with Brawl's ledge occupancy in PM, you realize just how much you *do not* need more occupancy to edgehog things as a quality decision as far as stretching the game to take more skill. There is a magic force from Melee that's still very much alive and kicking in PM called "ledge grab invulnerability" that is refreshable without penalty. Even in Melee, this was more than enough to edgehog people in almost any given scenario, but people didn't use it in favor of the loleasy ledge rolls. Well timed ledge grabs and regrabs will edgehog just about anything, even something as robust as Ike's UpB. The complaints are from those not used to adapting to this change, and I only have this to say: get better at the game.

When you're over 100% and get the sluggish ledge climbs, ledge occupancy gets much higher and Melee-like and you can edgehog pretty much anything in the game easily. I found this compromise to be fine in play, as IMO there should be some advantage to reaching this damage level and being saddled with those slow ledge climbs.

You have to realize that the huge ledge grab ranges that occur especially when in special fall (what nearly every recovery amounts to) greatly compound the difficulty people have with edgehogging. This is much better off being fixed before any increase to ledge occupancy itself is entertained, as many failed edgehogs could have been successful with Melee-like ledge grab ranges rather than just more occupancy.

When you say that lower edge occupancy might make recoveries like Sheik's better, you're forgetting that Sheik is not the only character in the game who has to recover. It reminds me of l3ffen's No-Shield-Push on PS argument buffing Peach to absurd levels when everyone reaps a benefit and likely have access to more effective punishing moves than her Dsmash.

Instead of making a case that "characters with bad offstage games need more occupancy" to edgeguard well, why not just improve their offstage games? Making that argument by itself is silly.

 

[Crispy4001]

Playing so long with Brawl's ledge occupancy in PM, you realize just how much you *do not* need more occupancy to edgehog things as a quality decision as far as stretching the game to take more skill. There is a magic force from Melee that's still very much alive and kicking in PM called "ledge grab invulnerability" that is refreshable without penalty. Even in Melee, this was more than enough to edgehog people in almost any given scenario, but people didn't use it in favor of the loleasy ledge rolls. Well timed ledge grabs and regrabs will edgehog just about anything, even something as robust as Ike's UpB. The complaints are from those not used to adapting to this change, and I only have this to say: get better at the game.

Great counter-argument, but I can't get behind it. If timing a ledgegrab/re-grab was truly as effective of a tactic as ledge occupancy rolls, we would see it used lot better than it is in vBrawl, PM vids, and in our own experience with the Demo.

The facts are: it's not nearly as easy, it's a harder to time, it takes more careful placement/set-up, you could get hit if you screw it up, etc. If that's what you want, understandable.

But know that this goes against many of the biggest perks of being the edgehogger in Melee. It breaks down the disadvantage/advantage relationship between the edge-guarder and recoverer to something much closer to vBrawl than Melee. 'Getting better' doesn't change that. I wouldn't say it adds skill either considering that it dumbs down positional advantage.

 

[JCaesar]

Mostly agreed with Ryoko. After playing P:M for a couple years now, I don't really have trouble edgehogging most recoveries (exceptions being Peach's and Ike's up-Bs and maybe one or two others). LO could stand to be a bit higher, but Melee-level just seems more like a crutch than a good game mechanic to me.

 

[hotdogturtle]

Mostly agree.

I don't put much stock into the visuals argument. Don't really care how it looks, personally. What's most important about it in Melee is that it is a viable tactic. It not only changes edge guarding itself, but also the way you're forced to think about recovery. If you're in a position to be edgeguarded like that, you should be in heightened danger of losing your stock. It's a dynamic that is important to Melee, and I think it should be important to P:M as well.

True, I also don't think that the visuals should have as much importance as the gameplay function, which is why my overall conclusion was that it should be more Melee-like to add another edgeguarding option to the game. I'm just saying that the visuals are an argument that some people are using to state their position.

Also: I don't think anyone is making the claim that we need Brawl's occupancy back. Everyone agrees that it needs to be higher. The only question is how much higher, on a scale from "half way between M/B" to "exactly like Melee".

 

[Strong Badam]

Great counter-argument, but I can't get behind it. If timing a ledgegrab/re-grab was truly as effective of a tactic as ledge occupancy rolls, we would see it used lot better than it is in vBrawl, PM vids, and in our own experience with the Demo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinlKtDHhRE#t=15s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinlKtDHhRE#t=6m10s

The facts are: it's not nearly as easy, it's a harder to time, it takes more careful placement/set-up, you could get hit if you screw it up, etc. If that's what you want, understandable.

Isn't one of the main things people like about Melee (other than fun) is that it takes skill? LOL. But I digress. This exercise is largely to see what YOU members think of ledge occupancy, not for PMBR to influence them.

Carry on.

 

[jalued]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinlKtDHhRE#t=15s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinlKtDHhRE#t=6m10s

Isn't one of the main things people like about Melee (other than fun) is that it takes skill? LOL. But I digress. This exercise is largely to see what YOU members think of ledge occupancy, not for PMBR to influence them.

Carry on.

My only dilemma with keeping it as close to brawl LO as possible is that it may damage some top tier melee matchups that melee player's have been use to for almost a decade

I support making normal getup and attack from ledge being the same as melee, and roll up being 75/100

 

[Strong Badam]

I think 73/100 is a better ratio.

 

[9Kplus1]

It takes skill to force a player into a position which Melee's LO could be considered "unbalanced", "broken", or anything of that nature. Because the P:M characters are balanced around Fox, I really don't see the harm in making ledge occupancy closer to Melee's. Smash is a game of covering weaknesses and taking advantage of opportunities. It wouldn't really be the bane of characters that have been worked on already, but instead reminds players the risk of badly ****ing up (i.e not covering their character's weaknesses well) or doing something stupid where their character obviously doesn't belong.

 

[Wavebuster]

It takes skill to force a player into a position which Melee's LO could be considered "unbalanced", "broken", or anything of that nature. Because the P:M characters are balanced around Fox, I really don't see the harm in making ledge occupancy closer to Melee's. Smash is a game of covering weaknesses and taking advantage of opportunities. It wouldn't really be the bane of characters that have been worked on already, but instead reminds players the risk of badly ****ing up (i.e not covering their character's weaknesses well) or doing something stupid where their character obviously doesn't belong.

It takes skill to actively edgeguard by chasing them offstage without twiddling your thumbs on the ledge. It takes skill to use moves that would kill people past their recovery capacity to make the ledge irrelevant (sky KOs). This can be argued both ways.

My only dilemma with keeping it as close to brawl LO as possible is that it may damage some top tier melee matchups that melee player's have been use to for almost a decade

I support making normal getup and attack from ledge being the same as melee, and roll up being 75/100

I don't quite understand this because the recoveries of top tiers (Fox, Falco, Sheik, Marth) are easily edgehogged anyway even without using a ledge climb. Puff and Peach don't let themselves be in a position to be stuck having to grab the edge very often.

 

[Archangel]

Mostly agreed with Ryoko. After playing P:M for a couple years now, I don't really have trouble edgehogging most recoveries (exceptions being Peach's and Ike's up-Bs and maybe one or two others). LO could stand to be a bit higher, but Melee-level just seems more like a crutch than a good game mechanic to me.

I think this is the stance most PMBR are taking but you should take one thing into account. Aside from the demo everyone else has just been playing melee. There are too many "yes I got him!" situations that are replaced by "damn i gotta let him back up". It is enough to effect the feel of melee vs project melee which in the long run could be a deal breaker for most melee players. The game could be great and is turning out great so far but with Brawl's LO I do not see many people playing it over melee.

Much like Landing detection people would put up with it because there was no choice it was difficult to code and those following the project understand it. However if now you were to willingly edit the timing of Landing detection to be between melee and brawl I suspect it would be a deal breaker for a group of people as well.

Personally I care less 1 way or the other.

 

[Shell]

The views expressed by PMBR members on this subject in this thread are solely their own.

The PMBR does not have a unified opinion on ledge occupancy duration at this time. We have merely presented that we now have the option of changing it.

 

[PEEF!]

Streaming! Got a slightly new setup as well! =DD

www.twitch.tv/peefsmash

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

Melee Ledge Occupancy. The goal here is to port Melee's physics, not try to improve it. If we wanted that we would've done auto l-canceling.

 

[Stevo]

one of my pet peeves in melee is people rolling up all the time even when they dont need to. Like against Falcons up-b when you are 95% sure he is not going to make it. Why ledge roll and take the risk? Now you could start your ledge roll really early but then you run the risk of the LO running out (though, not likely given how long melee LO is)

It wouldn't take that much effort to learn how to play with a smaller LO. I am not saying it should be like brawl, and Im not saying this is the strongest argument against 100% melee LO, but come on.

It seems worse switching it now because we are sooooo used to it being one way. This is the perfect opportunity to tidy it up a bit and make it slightly more skill testing.

Which is more awesome.

ledge rolling for the kill

or using ledge invincibility, spiking them giving them the opportunity to tech or meteor cancel, or b-air them into wall jump f-air, killing them regardless.

Keep in mind that if they keep it somewhere in between, you could still use the ledge roll in some situations, or with good timing

 

[Octorox]

Melee Ledge Occupancy. The goal here is to port Melee's physics, not try to improve it. If we wanted that we would've done auto l-canceling.

I kind of agree. I think any changes to the Melee mechanics need to be solely character specific. If this project starts diverging from Melee too much, then I don't see it gaining as much traction in the Melee community. Personally though, I don't care much either way.

 

[rk-9000]

Ivy could get a leaf copter like in Brawl- (although as an Up B rather than attached to Bullet Seed)

hell yeah! that would be amazing

 

[Mr.Pickle]

Well this isn't a complete copy of melee, so they have the freedom to diverge a bit from melee if they want. I feel a middle ground with it leaning a bit more towards melee's would be better.

 

[Brian_Link]

I'm in favor of 75/25.

It is a more 'realistic' mechanic that way. Yes I realize Smash isn't fully realistic, but if the animation has stopped touching the ledge, then how is the ledge still occupied? Its still pretty much Melee equivalent, but give the recoverer a better chance to get on the ledge when it looks like they should, which isn't going to break the game.

Also, P:M is supposed to be a better Melee, not an exact carbon copy of Melee. I know some people might not agree, but Melee is not above being improved.

Or since taunt cancelling isn't in Melee, should it be removed?

 

[ValTroX]

Melee Ledge Occupancy. The goal here is to port Melee's physics, not try to improve it. If we wanted that we would've done auto l-canceling.

Totally the opposite, L-cancel addition requires skill/timing, auto l-cancel doesn't, melee LO requires less skill/timing than brawl's, but brawl's LO time is too short. I really just want every LO times to match melee's, except for rolls, they were way too long. Also, if the goal was to make the game exactly as melee, the low-mid tiers wouldn't be getting buffs and we would go to the conversation of "why not play melee then" again.

 

[Octorox]

I'm in favor of 75/25.

It is a more 'realistic' mechanic that way. Yes I realize Smash isn't fully realistic, but if the animation has stopped touching the ledge, then how is the ledge still occupied? Its still pretty much Melee equivalent, but give the recoverer a better chance to get on the ledge when it looks like they should, which isn't going to break the game.

Also, P:M is supposed to be a better Melee, not an exact carbon copy of Melee. I know some people might not agree, but Melee is not above being improved.

Or since taunt cancelling isn't in Melee, should it be removed?

Yeah, it's silly lookin'

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

Also, if the goal was to make the game exactly as melee, the low-mid tiers wouldn't be getting buffs and we would go to the conversation of "why not play melee then" again.

The goal is to make the PHYSICS exactly like Melee.

I'm in favor of 75/25.

It is a more 'realistic' mechanic that way. Yes I realize Smash isn't fully realistic, but if the animation has stopped touching the ledge, then how is the ledge still occupied?

If Fox is in the air, how can he jump again?

Its still pretty much Melee equivalent, but give the recoverer a better chance to get on the ledge when it looks like they should, which isn't going to break the game.

Ledge occupancy in Melee does not break the game in any way.

Also, P:M is supposed to be a better Melee, not an exact carbon copy of Melee. I know some people might not agree, but Melee is not above being improved.

But does shorter ledge occupancy an improvement to Melee or an unnecessary physics change for the sake of aesthetics?

 

[9Kplus1]

It takes skill to actively edgeguard by chasing them offstage without twiddling your thumbs on the ledge. It takes skill to use moves that would kill people past their recovery capacity to make the ledge irrelevant (sky KOs). This can be argued both ways.

Had to type that with my phone, so sorry if I was a bit vague. Anyway, what I'd meant that post was simply that there's no real harm in adding an aspect of Melee that doesn't force a large change throughout the entire P:M cast. Characters such as Ike and Peach have redeeming aspects about them, such as wall jump shenanigans and turnips, respectively, that more than make up for their potentially further gimpable recoveries. This is especially true for Ganondorf, who already needs a nerf to his side B. Melee is a deep, technically reliant game. Forcing a player into a corner and then a situation such as that requires a lot more effort than people give it credit for. I mean, there's no inconceivable reason as to why a random can beat a player who knows what they're doing simply by abusing ledge occupancy.

Why nerf what isn't broken in the first place? "Giving the game a lot more depth" and making it "more reliant on skill" are both logical answers, but wouldn't that be a solution better geared towards Melee itself? The game has had years to develop, meaning that a lot of players have enough experience, ideas, and information to make more reliable arguments as to why ledge occupancy should be lowered or kept the same. As said multiple times, the amount of character buffs and new characters more than makes up for some of the aspects of Melee that made some character specific match-ups Hell or incredibly easy to play.

 

[JCaesar]

But does shorter ledge occupancy an improvement to Melee or an unnecessary physics change for the sake of aesthetics?

It's not for the sake of aesthetics. It's for the sake of gameplay. Brawl's LO makes edgeguarding take more skill (not an argument, just a fact). The argument is whether adding more skill to the edgeguarding game is worth the tradeoff of the edgeguardee recovering more often because edgeguarding is harder than it was in Melee, which could potentially make games take longer.

 

[jalued]

The argument is whether adding more skill to the edgeguarding game is worth the tradeoff of the edgeguardee recovering more often because edgeguarding is harder than it was in Melee, which could potentially make games take longer.

I don't feel that it is

 

[ValTroX]

The goal is to make the PHYSICS exactly like Melee.

Physics are pretty much spot on, some mechanics can work different though(one of those being LO). I trust the PMBR will make a decision and come up with the best alternative. oolmonke

 

[TeiunBomb]

For anyone that's still wondering what Ivy's helicopter recovery looks like in Brawl-, here's a vid of it in action.

She could also move around on the ground, too.

I don't think that either animation should be as long as it is if seriously considered for PM, but that's just one man's opinion.

 

[humble]

I support 50/50 to 75/25. Both extremes have benefits, so why not seek a middle ground?

 

[rk-9000]

For anyone that's still wondering what Ivy's helicopter recovery looks like in Brawl-, here's a vid of it in action.

She could also move around on the ground, too.

I don't think that either animation should be as long as it is if seriously considered for PM, but that's just one man's opinion.

she? ivysaur is a MAN

 

[Archangel]

It's not for the sake of aesthetics. It's for the sake of gameplay. Brawl's LO makes edgeguarding take more skill (not an argument, just a fact). The argument is whether adding more skill to the edgeguarding game is worth the tradeoff of the edgeguardee recovering more often because edgeguarding is harder than it was in Melee, which could potentially make games take longer.

brawl is a terrible game though.(not an argument just fact).

on a serious note this is the same as people who say melee requires no mindgames. In fact it requires more mindgames but they happen so fast sometimes most people who don't have high enough awareness will completely miss it. Edge-guarding requires alot of skill. Especially someone with multiple attacks as a final recovery(link) for example. When in a position where pressing R would kill him in Melee it won't kill him in Project Melee. That is enough to not only increase the length of games but it also can potentially change overall outcomes.

The way I see it as long as Some(maybe not all) but some characters can edgeguard characters like that without getting smacked off themselves or letting the character back on stage then I don't care. As I stated before I wouldn't mind character specific LO Ranging from brawl's timing to Melee's timing I believe that would make the most sense and in a sense could please everyone.

 

[drsusredfish]

as long LO isn't more than melee or less than brawls its fine to me. What ever the PMBR does is fine. just going to have to adapt to it anyway. Id recommend unversal LO times it seems quicker to code and still varies skill level depending on who is fighting.

 

[standardtoaster]

Can't really make it longer than melee's (full animation length). lol

 

[KirbyandSonicrock14]

Did you guys finish doing all the characters. I love what you have done with sonic. I want to know what you did to Kirby.

 

[Mattnumbers]

I vote for infinite LO. After you grab a ledge it can never be grabbed again.

Seriously though, I think that ledge occupancy should be less than it was in Melee. Having that many frames doesn't make it possible to edgehog most recoveries that you couldn't edgehog without full LO, it just makes it easier to do. The exceptions to this are moves like Peach's and Ike's upB.

As long as there are enough occupancy frames for it to still be possible with a bit of skill it shouldn't make high level matches last any longer.

 

[Crispy4001]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinlKtDHhRE#t=15s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FinlKtDHhRE#t=6m10s

Isn't one of the main things people like about Melee (other than fun) is that it takes skill? LOL. But I digress. This exercise is largely to see what YOU members think of ledge occupancy, not for PMBR to influence them.

Carry on.

The crux of my arguement was that edgehogging in Melee was an entirely no risk and straightforward action: but you only get the option to do it when you have a positional advantage and properly read your oponent's recovery options (so it could actually work).

What good reason is there for it to be more complicated than grabbing the edge and pressing L? The other method arbitrarily makes the action more compicated and riskier.

As with some others here, I'd much rather see the rolling ledge occupancy window reduced slightly from Melee as more reasonable method of adding necessary skill. That way you're still given all the same advantages as in Melee (a good thing), only with somewhat stricter timing, and still with none of the downsides/complications of the ledge grab method.

I don't see any logic in going further than that just for 'skill'-sake.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEJhE1rNgsI

lol this guy took OHC

 

[standardtoaster]

Jackpot, silentdoom is a member of the PMBR and had permission from shanus to use it.

 

[Spoon~]

Peef is Streaming it up.

http://www.twitch.tv/peefsmash

 

[ph00tbag]

Melee Ledge Occupancy. The goal here is to port Melee's physics, not try to improve it. If we wanted that we would've done auto l-canceling.

Automatic l-canceling actually removes depth, because there is an inherent cost associated with not properly predicting or reacting to whether or not you have hit your opponent or their sheild. Essentially, it's a way for the defender to manipulate the attacker.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

Jackpot, silentdoom is a member of the PMBR and had permission from shanus to use it.

I'm an idiot.