Q&A Quickplay and Battle Arena

[Sucumbio]

Ask a question, get an answer! Here you'll find information specific to the two online modes: Quickplay, and Battle Arena. Below is a quick start guide to each mode.

Quickplay

In this mode, you will be matched up with players based on your preference. You can choose either "Solo" (playing be yourself) or "Co-op" which allows for 2 players on one Switch to play together.

There is also the Preferred Rules setting. Setting it to "off" will lead you to be matched with literally anyone else logged into the mode. Setting it to "on" will result in your matchup being closely aligned with your Preferred Rules settings, which are as follows:

• Format - Free for All, Team Battle, or 1v1
• Rules - Timed match, Stock Match, or Stamina based
• Stock - If chosen Stock match, can be 1, 2 or 3
• Time Limit - If Timed match, can be 3 to 7 min
• Stage - Can allow All Stages, All Stages with Hazards Off, Battlefield only, or Omega Stages only
• Items - Can be all off (Set None), all on, "Other" which is all items off except Smash Ball, Assist Trophy, Pokeball, Dragoon Parts, Special Flag. Note: Selecting any of theese individually will result in that item NOT appearing, leaving all others enabled.

Once you have selected your preferences it's time to Smash! The matchmaking server will pair your Switch with other players whose preferences closely match yours, but above all else, connection quality is paramount. What this means is, even if someone close by has a totally different preference setting than you, because your connection quality is so high, you will be paired with them.

Battle Arena

In this mode, you will be able to specify exactly the ruleset by which you want to play. You can either join an existing Arena or create one of your own.

When you create an Arena you must first decide some preliminary choices:

• Type - Any skill level, Veteran players, Glorious Smashers, Anything Goes, and Playground,
• Visibility - Public (anyone can join) or Friends (only those whose FC are registered can join)
• Format - 1v1 or Team Battle
• Rules - Select a Ruleset from your rules list that you've made offline. This will have already been made if you've done any local Smash, but you can create a new ruleset at this time as well.
• Rotation - Determines what happens when each round is over - Loser goes to end of the line, or Winner does.

Tap Y to determine more settings:

• Max Players (the TOTAL number of players that can enter the Arena including spectators) -1 through 8
• Stage - Choice (one player's choice selected randomly), Random (choice made from full stagelist regardless of player input), Random Battlefield, Random Omega
• Spirits - Can be On or Off
• Voice Chat - Can be On or Off. On requires Smartphone App
• Room Music - Select the music that plays in the Arena while waiting for matches

Note: You can Password Protect an Arena if you make one for Friends matches. They will not be able to join without knowing the Password.

Once you have joined an arena, or made one of your own, the Arena screen will appear. Here you can do the following

• Spectate - Place your SmashTag over the bleacher area to the left. You cannot spectate a match that is already in progess.
• Waiting Area - Place your SmashTag here when you are ready to join the Rotation. Matches comence automatically based on Rotation settings for the Arena.
• Idle - Default location for SmashTag upper right portion of the Arena. While here you can change characters (click icon bottom right corner). Changing characters while your SmashTag is in the Waitng Area will REMOVE you from the rotation, and you'll have to join the rotation again.
• Arena - In the Ring! Place your SmashTag here if you've just joined an Arena and there is no wait, or if you are the Arena Owner and are ready to recieve your first opponents

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are the Arena Owner, and you leave the Arena, the Arena closes! This means anyone sitll playing will lose their connection to each other. So just as a precaution and in the spirit of fair play, wait until a match is concluded before leaving if you can. That way those still in a battle won't be dropped mid-fight.

 

[Pathellgate]

Wanted to play with a friend. Us two vs two computers. We can meet in battle arena, but did I miss an add A.I. setting?

 

[invega]

me and 3 friends bought a switch and super smash bros ultimate.

-First i cannnot message my friends. Why do you have a friendlist?
-We can only play Battle Arena? cmon nintendo thats suck. Why no multipalyer quickplay with friends online?
-And why there is no ranked? solo, duo etc. WE ARE IN 2018.

It feels like pre alpha game from 2010 without features.

 

[Dan]

I know no such thing exists anymore, but what is the most surefire way? This is absolutely pitiful; I am not sitting in a battle arena waiting for other people to finish playing just to play a 1v1 itemless match. Preferred rules didn't help me at all. Online and interface in general is as horrible as Super Mario Party. This is going to get patched.

Like I have no idea if 2 or 3 stocks are going to be the meta, what the time limit should be, and regarding stages, why not put the battlefield, Omega and legal hazard-less ones all into a pool? They have no clue what they're doing; the gameplay may have improved, but the interface is worse than Sm4sh.

 

[TheBeastHimself]

I've jumped to a few threads and gave my opinions of Ultimate's online, but I wanted to give a more detailed post here.

Smash Ultimate Online is terrible. Let's see why:

1. Matchmakng System: This is the biggest offender. You don't even get to choose how you want to play online anymore, the game chooses it for you. You can tell the game "well I prefer to play with no items on battlefield stages", and the system will connect you to a free-for-all with items and stage hazards. And it happens, over and over. You'll be lucky to connect to a match with your preferred rules, and trust me it's very rare to occur.
2. No Quitting: You cannot leave online matches, at least if you use Quick Match. That means if you get stuck in a free-for-all that you didn't want to be in, you're stuck there until it's over and resetting the game will most likely lead to being banned for a certain amount of time for quitting.
3. Still No Dedicated Servers: You're going to get a mix of Sm4sh and Brawl level qualities of lag in your matches. Of course there will be smooth matches running at 60 frames, but once again the majority of matches are awfully slow. Don't buy a LAN adapter, it's not worth your money. It's not your responsibility to make sure that Nintendo's servers are running fine, it's theirs.
4. No Taunting: Not too bad of a complaint, but seriously you can't taunt at all.

I'm sure a lot of you agree that online play for Ultimate is a huge step down from Sm4sh. A couple of patches and tweaks won't do anything, the matchmaking system itself needs an entire overhaul and Nintendo needs to have dedicated servers. I know online play is a huge part of the game for a lot of people, including myself, and after hyping the game up to be the best in the series, Nintendo really let us down in the online department.

 

[lucasla]

1. This is bad, but can be fixed with an update adding an option like "SELECTED MODE ONLY", that will insert you only on the game mode you selected. If you dont want to play some game mode, you shouldn't. Force people playing some mode isn't fun, what the hell were they thinking? People preffer to wait on the line instead of play some match they dont want.
2. This is a problem because of 1. Fixing 1 you fix 2, unless if you wanna leave battles being a troll.
3. This will not come, and it was predictable. It's Nintendo, they still dont know how to make online. They dont have a chat system on their console that has a friend list.
4. Can be fixed with a patch too.

Fixing 1, 2, and 4 is pretty possible. 3 we just will need to accept it.
We just need to hope they will not be blind for these problems and will act fast before it hurts the game too much for many people.

 

[Robin Lucina]

I chose "1 v 1 mode" on prefered rule set, but why do I meet 4 players?
And can't I change characters while fighting with same opponents?
If I press rematch button, I can't change characters...
Anyone knows about 1 v 1 mode?

 

[DiamondDust132]

Because the system is crap right now. You're not guaranteed to get 1 v 1 even if you set it. You just have to hope and pray. And no, you can't change characters either. You have to completely back out if you want to do so.

 

[Robin Lucina]

Because the system is crap right now. You're not guaranteed to get 1 v 1 even if you set it. You just have to hope and pray. And no, you can't change characters either. You have to completely back out if you want to do so.

Thanks for anwser.
Maybe will there be some updates for online?

 

[DiamondDust132]

I hope so. It's honestly a mess at the moment. Good thing is most of the stuff besides a dedicated server could be patched in.

 

[Robin Lucina]

I hope so. It's honestly a mess at the moment. Good thing is most of the stuff besides a dedicated server could be patched in.

There are multiple sever maintenence planed. Can there be some improvements?

 

[DiamondDust132]

Hard to say. Nintendo has likely heard all the complaints. I'd cross my fingers but not hope for something too specific. Game is still pretty new, after all.

 

[ShadyGT]

same , did about 10 games, 1 was 1v1. thats crap...

 

[Luigifan18]

They should take a look at how Brawlhalla handles online.

 

[Aes2]

#3 is the most important thing they need to fix. This is hugely disappointing and frankly unacceptable in this day in age. Starcraft was created 20 YEARS ago and had smoother online play back then! Disagree with the above poster that this isn't a fixable issue. I've played games online where their initial server strategy was suboptimal and the companies invested to improve their infrastructure and the issues were eventually resolved. The smash community will have to come together though and ensure our voices are heard if we want any shot at Nintendo fixing this disgrace.

 

[Sunredo]

Your best bet with online is Battle Arenas. You can set everything how you want it to be and actually get it, whether it's changing characters or even the music in the lobby, you can change it. Other fighting games like Guilty Gear Xrd have this in a similar function with rooms, and with that community it's the most popular way to play online. I'm not saying you shouldn't speak out against quick play's terrible matchmaking but even if all that gets fixed Battle Arenas is still ideal for online.

If someone's laggy you can just kick them. If you want to see how good players fight and take notes then just look for glorious smashers and spectate, they probably don't mind, and if they do they can just kick you and you can find another arena. Since the icon of players pin is their smash tag icon, it makes it easier to find people you liked fighting against again because you associate that character with them. When making a room set the name to your region so people know what they're getting into when it comes to connections. You can set how many people you want in the arena, 2 being best for 1v1s and 4 being best for doubles. You can also set what kind of playstyle you want from players. If you just want to do whatever then you can pick the playground option and so on.

I know this thread is about Matchmaking's screwups so just consider this a mini PSA about the greatness of Battle Arenas.

 

[X1rom]

Smash uses a peer to peer system. Which means the servers are only for matchmaking. This is normal for fighting games. And depending on your WiFi you'll need to get the Lan adapter to have a better experience. Nintendo can't improve the servers, there's no servers to speak of. If they would change the system which would be a lot of work, it will introduce latency and make it even more laggy.

 

[X1rom]

There's a rank, and players are matched accordingly. Except battle arena, this doesn't take your rank into account. I think Battle Arena is quite the elegant solution to play with your friends even if it takes longer to setup.

 

[TimG57867]

As a Kirby main #4 just kills me.

 

[Sucumbio]

As a Kirby main #4 just kills me.

Nah. Kirby IS the taunt XD

 

[ProfessorVincent]

I think #1 will become less of an issue as the community solidifies its preferred rules. For example, once the competitive ruleset becomes standardized, it will be probably easy to find players at decent distances (so, hopefully, decent pings) who have the same competitive ruleset.

I also don't mind the occasional deviation from the rules that I've chosen. Unless I'm put in a laggy 4 player match.

 

[SmashBro99]

So since I'm not allowed to play 1v1s like I'd like just a friendly reminder to target the trash Zeldas in FFAs, thanks guys!

 

[Metalbro]

Quick battles is a joke atm.

Just play in arena battles. Set your own room with your preferred rules and let people join you. Idk how gsp works or if you can even attain points in arena battles, but its not worth playing a ffa with items on if you were looking for 1v1s.

 

[Sunredo]

Quick battles is a joke atm.

Just play in arena battles. Set your own room with your preferred rules and let people join you. Idk how gsp works or if you can even attain points in arena battles, but its not worth playing a ffa with items on if you were looking for 1v1s.

Considering the only reason to want to get GSP is Elite Smash, it's not a big deal to miss out on GSP in Arena. Elite Smash is meant to balance the game but most really shouldn't be worried about getting there since it's just regular matchmaking with more skilled players. However, you can find just as or even more skilled players consistently in Arena though if you just put the criteria to veteran or glorious. Unless you want to bring more attention to the devs about a character you perceive as broken there isn't a point in going into Elite Smash over Arena. Of course, like you said, Quick Play is a joke. Don't bother with it.

 

[MacSmitty]

You forgot to add that you can't switch characters between matches online either.

 

[EnthusedPanda]

I had a few hours of luck by setting up a 2-person arena earlier. Played with one person per room for an hour each. We gave each other time to switch characters and stages between rounds.

Currently that’s the only way I’d recommend playing. You’ll get someone who’s on your wavelength.

 

[Deleted member]

Number 3 really isn't that big of an issue. Dedicated servers could be nice and all, but P2P, even in the modern day, is the norm for fighting games. You can't really compare it to something like Starcraft which is in a whole different ball park for online then a fighting game.

And Number 2 is a god sent. I am so happy that people can't ragequit. If you dedicate yourself to entering a match, you have to see it through until the end. Exactly as it should be.

 

[Kadji100]

Pros and Cons to Batlle Arena:
Pro:
+ Almost total controll over the ruleset
+ Up to 8? Players can be together in a Lobby (not sure on the exact amount)
+ Possibility to Spectate
+ Taunts!
+ Public / Private rooms are possible

Con:
- No GSP gain/loss, thus beeing forced to play Quickmatch if you want to unlock Elite Smash
- Changing your Character between matches "resets" your spot in the waiting queque
- Generally longer wait times between matches if you are not winning most of your matches (at least with the default "winner stays" ruleset in a 1vs1 environement)
- Even if you play 1 vs 1, if you have many people in the room spectating the match it can get as laggy as a 4 player FFA. Since Battle Arenas are still run on a P2P basis the general connection quality of the arena is dependent on the upstream/downstream/connection quallity of the person hosting the arena.
- If you hosted the Arena and leave the Mode the Arena will be disbanded. The Host status is not transfered to another person, so everybody gets kicked.

Edit: Regarding the lag: This is based on assumptions but the game mentions that the game could get laggy if you allow for more people in the room. The game even suggests decreasing the amount of people that can join if the game is lagging. I have very good Internet (fiber cable, about 400mbit/s downstream and 40 mbit/s upstream) so we noticed nearly 0 lag in a big room that I hosted. When I later joined a room hosted by one of my friends (he has not so great Internet) we noticed much more lag.

 

[Kadji100]

One thing though: Battle Arena does not let you gain GSP.
If you want to unlock the Elite Online Mode you *have* to grind through quickmatches.

But other than that, yes, Battle Arenas are much better than the online mode that Sm4sh had.
Quick Match on the other hand was better in Sm4sh because I could at least be sure to get into a 1 on 1, no Items match (even though only Final Destination kinda sucked).

 

[ProfessorVincent]

But don't elite battles have the same problem as quick match? I got into battle arenas yesterday and couldn't be happier. You can just make them with your custom ruleset, say random hazardless legal stages only.

 

[ProfessorVincent]

• Stage - Choice (one player's choice selected randomly), Random (choice made from full stagelist regardless of player input), Random Battlefield, Random Omega.

Just wanted to point out that if your ruleset has a limited random stage list, it still applies to battle arenas. E.g. you can do only legal hazardless stages set to random.

 

[bmfk]

I've jumped to a few threads and gave my opinions of Ultimate's online, but I wanted to give a more detailed post here.

Smash Ultimate Online is terrible. Let's see why:

1. Matchmakng System: This is the biggest offender. You don't even get to choose how you want to play online anymore, the game chooses it for you. You can tell the game "well I prefer to play with no items on battlefield stages", and the system will connect you to a free-for-all with items and stage hazards. And it happens, over and over. You'll be lucky to connect to a match with your preferred rules, and trust me it's very rare to occur.
2. No Quitting: You cannot leave online matches, at least if you use Quick Match. That means if you get stuck in a free-for-all that you didn't want to be in, you're stuck there until it's over and resetting the game will most likely lead to being banned for a certain amount of time for quitting.
3. Still No Dedicated Servers: You're going to get a mix of Sm4sh and Brawl level qualities of lag in your matches. Of course there will be smooth matches running at 60 frames, but once again the majority of matches are awfully slow. Don't buy a LAN adapter, it's not worth your money. It's not your responsibility to make sure that Nintendo's servers are running fine, it's theirs.
4. No Taunting: Not too bad of a complaint, but seriously you can't taunt at all.

I'm sure a lot of you agree that online play for Ultimate is a huge step down from Sm4sh. A couple of patches and tweaks won't do anything, the matchmaking system itself needs an entire overhaul and Nintendo needs to have dedicated servers. I know online play is a huge part of the game for a lot of people, including myself, and after hyping the game up to be the best in the series, Nintendo really let us down in the online department.

They took only lateral steps if not backwards ones with this online. You nailed it. Saying this is a step down from Sm4sh isn't good considering that was abysmal. Also, if removing taunts that are funny or playful was to eliminate toxicity then it's only replaced with crouching by the community.

 

[EnthusedPanda]

I bought a LAN adapter. It helped. Peer to peer is standard for fighting game netcode and a stronger connection will only help.

 

[1FC0]

Teabagging is now your taunt. As for Smash 6 online: You start with 2 crouches and get an extra crouch for everyone you kill. In Smash 7 you cannot crouch at all online.

 

[Shieldlesscap]

1. This seems like an exaggeration. I've only gotten into 2 FFAs, both of which I was able to quit out of before the match started, all of my games ran smoothly, and the only thing that changed was stage selection. I think it just depends on the other players near you, since my region does have a lot of good players in it. Also, *laughs in battle arenas*
2. This on the other hand I can't defend, because it's actually bull****. Not because you can't quit, I can almost understand that, but because you CAN quit, but only from 1v1s. This seems like it was actively designed to spite people who want to play 1v1s because it means someone who wants a FFA but gets a 1v1 can quit, but someone who wants a 1v1 but gets an FFA can't.
3. Not Nintendo's fault everyone around you has WiFi. You getting a LAN cable isn't enough, EVERYONE needs to get one for it to actually make a difference.
4. Considering you can taunt in Battle Arenas I'm assuming this will be patched into QP if enough people complain about it.

 

[BonyBrusher]

1. This seems like an exaggeration. I've only gotten into 2 FFAs, both of which I was able to quit out of before the match started, all of my games ran smoothly, and the only thing that changed was stage selection. I think it just depends on the other players near you, since my region does have a lot of good players in it. Also, *laughs in battle arenas*
2. This on the other hand I can't defend, because it's actually bull****. Not because you can't quit, I can almost understand that, but because you CAN quit, but only from 1v1s. This seems like it was actively designed to spite people who want to play 1v1s because it means someone who wants a FFA but gets a 1v1 can quit, but someone who wants a 1v1 but gets an FFA can't.
3. Not Nintendo's fault everyone around you has WiFi. You getting a LAN cable isn't enough, EVERYONE needs to get one for it to actually make a difference.
4. Considering you can taunt in Battle Arenas I'm assuming this will be patched into QP if enough people complain about it.

Battle Arenas need some work too. For one, you should be able to swap your character without getting bumped to the back of the queue. Idk why they have to make a new system for picking characters and stages for every mode because it doesn't feel like it adds anything. And I think in a room of eight people, you should be able to challenge anyone in the lobby who isn't fighting someone else.
I don't think any of that is gonna happen though

 

[lucasla]

Nintendo is lucky that most reviews of the game came out right before the release of the game and the reviewers probably couldn't test the online portion of the game. Cause if they did, I can easily see the Metascore of the game going from 93 to something closer to 85.

 

[RepStar]

In FFA all items 3:00 time limit, i spammed bowsers grapple move and suicided with my opponents lmao! It was another bowser and he started doing it too, lolol! i had atleast 4 SDs straight of spawning back in and grabbing someone while i was still invincible and the match just turned into us grabbing the other two and SDs lmao and then i got disconnected and now banned for 1hr and 12min. Sucks because it was so fun. Ill be more subtle with it next time and do it in betweem actual kills i get and see how it works. As long as theres no perma-ban its no big deal to switch over my tv to play the ps4 lolol.

 

[OnyxArmos]

i spammed bowsers grapple move and suicided

Well that's why

 

[TheLightningYu]

Nintendo is lucky that most reviews of the game came out right before the release of the game and the reviewers probably couldn't test the online portion of the game. Cause if they did, I can easily see the Metascore of the game going from 93 to something closer to 85.

I wouldn't bet on that, because that's more an Issue for the Hardcore-Competitive-Scene... the Folks who test / review this Games play this more casual and i don't think the care about 1on1 without items...

The Concept itself is actually pretty neat, because it doesn't split the the Community into different Playlists, you choose your prefered ruleset, if you get it, you are happy if not you can enjoy the other ruleset as well... and have no waitingtimes and huge playerbase for it... it only doesn't work for the competitive scene, because obviously they want to stick to their discipline and play that. They really should tweak on that and give us the option for Elite-Smash to look for the prefered Ruleset "only".

But Arena truthfully is the Star of the Online-Mode, seems like they inspired themself by Arms, except it feels bit more barebones compared to Arms. However if you look at Splatoon and Arms, i expect them to deliever, support and polish SSBU in an similiar way, so hopefully they fix such issues (pretty fast).

I want to point out, for beat'em'ups Dedicated Servers aren't needed anyway or better say, can be more problematic to begin with...