Quick opinions on meteor ground bounce mechanics

[A2ZOMG]

To put it very shortly, they're stupid and should be changed.

Here's obvious problems with ground bounce mechanics:
1. Meteors are techable on the ground, meaning say when Ganondorf D-airs you, you can tech the hit and punish him.
2. They remove viable combo options competitively generally speaking.

The obvious solution is to specifically make meteors NON-TECHABLE (during hitstun of course). Here's reasons why this wouldn't be broken.
1. Most meteors in this game have VERY situational usage. They all have noticeable startup, and require relatively predictable spacing. Most of them also have noticeable landing lag as well.
2. Jab locking was nerfed (furthermore, ground bouncing by itself makes Jab locking harder to set up).
3. Because Ganondorf STILL needs buffs.

Unless I missed some exception, meteors in this game generally are worse off outside of edgeguarding, which overall is pretty hard to do in this game due to anti-edgehog mechanics. Given how situational meteor attacks are in this game, I believe they should be consistently more rewarding. Thus, making them non-techable would easily have more advantages than disadvantages considering the general scope of mechanics changes.

/rant

 

[ChillySundance]

when you say techable on the ground, do you mean a standing opponent can tech the hit without being in the air first?

 

[Rakurai]

They can.

I've seen the AI do it before.

 

[A2ZOMG]

when you say techable on the ground, do you mean a standing opponent can tech the hit without being in the air first?

Precisely that. Meaning there are no consistently viable juggle combos out of meteors in this game.

Smash previously handled meteors in the air and ground as seperate cases. On the ground, meteors were effectively vertical knockback with increased hitstun per unit of distance, while in the air they acted normally. In Smash 4, they are treated as one case, where a meteor always causes a hard collision with the ground that can be teched or results in a ground bounce.

 

[Ganreizu]

Precisely that. Meaning there are no consistently viable juggle combos out of meteors in this game.

Not necessarily. All of the meteors i can remember also have a hitbox that send you up and away regardless of stage bounce. If you can mix up hitting people with that hitbox and the bounce, they'll try to tech and may not VI allowing a followup instead.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Not necessarily. All of the meteors i can remember also have a hitbox that send you up and away regardless of stage bounce. If you can mix up hitting people with that hitbox and the bounce, they'll try to tech and may not VI allowing a followup instead.

That means you're not hitting people with a meteor, which is not the point of this discussion. Let me also remind you this.

1. Most meteors in this game have VERY situational usage. They all have noticeable startup, and require relatively predictable spacing. Most of them also have noticeable landing lag as well.

 

[Hitzel]

Not necessarily. All of the meteors i can remember also have a hitbox that send you up and away regardless of stage bounce. If you can mix up hitting people with that hitbox and the bounce, they'll try to tech and may not VI allowing a followup instead.

Or you can just tech while holding the right direction in case they get crafty...

Anyway, I'd like to see characters be able to be groundbounced one time until they are in a standing state again, without being able to tech groundbounces. As of now, advanced players negate ground bounces while beginners who can't tech can get infinited.

The only consistent use for the groundbounce I can think of now is to spike them into an active hitbox so the character takes the inescapable kbockback of the spike, but it forced into a different type of hitstun before they hit the ground. Any characters with lingering projectiles have a spike?

 

[Joe73191]

This, comparatively, isn't nearly as bad as some of the other mechanic choices from a competitive stand-point. The 60-frame grab-whif or the ledge-stealing are both pretty bad imo. Some moves having 30 and 40 frames of landing lag was poor too. Although no momentum from dash to jump and lack of true dash dancing are, I think, this game's biggest weakness.

 

[ChillySundance]

the anti-chain grab mechanics and the new ledge mechanics are fine compared to this. They either fix an element of the game that was toxic and repetitive (chain grabbing, grab release glitch, etc) or simply change the way we play overall (new ledge mechanics create surprisingly deep and competitive edgeguarding.)

This just straight up makes meteor attacks less effective on skilled grounded opponents even if you connect and play well, which is lame and meaningless.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

There's no meaning to suggesting a game mechanics change like this. Even if we agreed with you, what would we do? It's better to just accept stuff like this for what it is and think about how it affects the game. By my quick figuring, this is really pretty awful for Ganon but probably not that big of a deal for most other characters. The only other Brawl characters who used their meteor dairs to approach grounded opponents, well, pretty much ever were Falco and Ness; both of those characters have had substantial nerfs to dair and probably wouldn't do that in smash 4 anyway. The newcomers in smash 4 are hard to judge like this; Villager's dair with the three turnips could be used like this, but it's also random so that makes things odd. I think Palutena has a decentish meteor dair (maybe? I don't actually have the game), but I'm not sure what her game flow is and whether this actually would matter to her at all. That doesn't suggest this little mechanics change as being that big of a deal one way or another; we'll have to see how it actually plays out, but I'm not concerned as things stand.

 

[ChillySundance]

It's pretty disappointing for everyone who had neat combos from a meteor smash attack on the ground, not just Ganon. Zelda can't do jumping Dair spikes into air jump Bairs now, Donkey Kong has little reason to shorthop Fair. Yoshi's shorthop Fair got super buffed to have next to no landing lag but now it's not applicable for him to use it for the meteor bounce, and a bunch of others I can't think of off the top of my head.

Oh well, at least Ganon's side B still can't be teched.

 

[Raijinken]

The speed of rolling makes me think this is now a bad choice for Ganondorf to begin with.

I like the new change. The bounce on a missed tech is interesting and leads to some interesting followup options. And I, at least, haven't seen a human instantly tech a meteor when they started on the ground (if I'm interpreting some of the earlier posts here correctly), so maybe it adds a level of skill to be able to do so.

 

[shininimuss]

The speed of rolling makes me think this is now a bad choice for Ganondorf to begin with.

I like the new change. The bounce on a missed tech is interesting and leads to some interesting followup options. And I, at least, haven't seen a human instantly tech a meteor when they started on the ground (if I'm interpreting some of the earlier posts here correctly), so maybe it adds a level of skill to be able to do so.

you can instantly dodge after boucing off the ground...

 

[Raijinken]

you can instantly dodge after boucing off the ground...

Even better, dodges are pretty easy to read and punish.

 

[shininimuss]

btw i meant air dodge.

 

[TTTTTsd]

It's basically proof that no Smash will ever be perfect, unfortunately. Not a big fan of it myself but it doesn't affect my character drastically.

 

[shininimuss]

It's basically proof that no Smash will ever be perfect, unfortunately. Not a big fan of it myself but it doesn't affect my character drastically.

pm?

 

[Jerodak]

I think as long as you're mixing up your approach and aren't very obviously fishing for the spike bounce then the opponent will not tech against you too often. The ground bounce was never an invite for characters to get combo starters off of telegraphed attacks, it's more like a way to reward the player for landing the telegraphed attack, you can possibly get good follow-ups or landing traps out of it if you know what to go for, but it doesn't mean it's something to fish around for.

Also, because of the new mechanic, and the fact that spikes are such telegraphed moves, if your opponent knows you have one and it looks like you're going for it, they will likely try to avoid it in some way or punish it. If you use this to your advantage by simply empty jumping only to look like you're going for your spike, and observe the opponent, you can get a read on them which lets you bait out their options to go for a punish.

For example we could look at Ganondorf, he could punish attempts at shielding the spike with side b, and can probably punish rolls with either side b or down b. Not so sure about his options against a spotdodge, but Ftilt looks like it has good range and frame data so you might be able to use that with minimal risk if you're not predictable with it.

Also, about spikes being generally nerfed, meteor cancelling was, as far as we know now, removed from the game. So it's no longer possible to jump and up b out of the spike like you could before, so once you get dunked, that's it, unless you have a good recovery after the hitstun is over but even then you're still in a prime position to get dunked a second time.

Furthermore, edgehogging being removed is actually a good thing for Ganondorf overall, but that's going off topic. The point is that spikes are still quite viable if you make use of the threat they bring to the other player and aren't too liberal with ground bounce attempts.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Oh well, at least Ganon's side B still can't be teched.

Ganondorf STILL needs buffs.

There's no meaning to suggesting a game mechanics change like this. Even if we agreed with you, what would we do? It's better to just accept stuff like this for what it is and think about how it affects the game. By my quick figuring, this is really pretty awful for Ganon but probably not that big of a deal for most other characters. The only other Brawl characters who used their meteor dairs to approach grounded opponents, well, pretty much ever were Falco and Ness; both of those characters have had substantial nerfs to dair and probably wouldn't do that in smash 4 anyway. The newcomers in smash 4 are hard to judge like this; Villager's dair with the three turnips could be used like this, but it's also random so that makes things odd. I think Palutena has a decentish meteor dair (maybe? I don't actually have the game), but I'm not sure what her game flow is and whether this actually would matter to her at all. That doesn't suggest this little mechanics change as being that big of a deal one way or another; we'll have to see how it actually plays out, but I'm not concerned as things stand.

Realistically, ground bounce mechanics barely affect the game competitively, given most of the meteors in this game as I stated earlier are actually hard to hit on stage.

It's just at the same time, the way they work right now, they remove more options than they bring due to teching. Which makes the game more stale when landing that clutch meteor as a read on an opponent on stage isn't rewarded properly, and several of the iconic juggles that players are familiar with in Smash that start from landing a grounded meteor are no longer viable.

Given Nintendo is clearly capable of patching the game, it is in a sense the responsibility of players to be discussing problems and providing feedback.

 

[shininimuss]

shofu teched ganon's side B....

 

[Nixon Corral]

Well, I'd say they should patch it, but I'm really biased and want the stomp->knee back.

Honestly, yeah, it probably shouldn't be techable. Seems like it just makes meteors on stage a bad idea.

 

[Aninymouse]

Also, about spikes being generally nerfed, meteor cancelling was, as far as we know now, removed from the game.

I know for a fact that I've seen Megaman cancel ROB's meteor with up B. Dunno if that just has to do with Megaman's super-duper up B, or if anyone can cancel meteros after a certain number of frames, or what.

 

[Jerodak]

I know for a fact that I've seen Megaman cancel ROB's meteor with up B. Dunno if that just has to do with Megaman's super-duper up B, or if anyone can cancel meteros after a certain number of frames, or what.

Yeah, I would test that with other characters first, since that might be a rush cancel instead of a meteor cancel, also Megaman can't do anything out of up b till after he does the little flip at the peak of the jump. So he's completely vulnerable for quite a while, as long as he doesn't grab the ledge out of the Up B you should get a second chance to spike him, especially with a character like R.O.B who has a strong recovery.

shofu teched ganon's side B....

I'm pretty sure that I've seen Ganondorf hit someone out of a roll tech with his Dtilt after a side b. It looks like they decided to turn it into a move to set up tech chasing opportunities, which Ganondorf actually looks pretty good at. He might even be able to tech chase off Down air if he can fast fall auto-cancel from a full hop after connecting. Has anyone tried anything like that with his Dair yet?