Recovery discussion, good and bad

[Kink-Link5]

Continuation from http://smashboards.com/threads/335835/

Recoveries, in general, are fine in this game. I really don't understand the big fuss. You're almost always in a disadvantageous position when forced to recover. It's just that now many characters have an actual chance of making it back if the opponent screws up an edgeguard. I think it's better this way.

It's also kind of funny when people suggest nerfing recoveries across the board when you know what they really mean is "nerf every good recovery...except Fox's."

The way I see a recovery situation is one that means that the player on the victim end had done something poorly to be put in that situation. It should rightfully be difficult to get out of a disadvantageous position- it shouldn't be on the attacking player to struggle to keep momentum and keep their offensive up. It should require work on both parts, but much more so on the defending player needing to conscientiously make the proper decision to recover, usually high, to face the lesser of two evils and make another recovery attempt- hopefully one from a higher starting point to make it increasingly more likely to recover.

Edgeguarding should not be automatic, but a recovering opponent should be forced to take more than a couple of percent off a desperate punish, and it should by a long shot be on the disadvantaged player to get out of that situation than for the advantaged one to keep it.

 

[a vehicle]

Well it's nice to see that i get a chance to continue myrant about recoveries in the last unrailed thread where someone mentioned sonic and everyone lost their mind

To this

Also keeping in mind that Melee isn't the pinnacle of Smash perfection and that P:M doesn't have to be a 1:1 clone is a good mentality to have. If your Up-B can't handle the simplest of interceptions, that's bull**** in my eyes. I know not every character would have bad recovery, but nerfing every character's recovery simply so people can die sooner isn't gonna solve all of our problems.

and this

The concepts and physics behind melee should be the stepping stone, and not the goal. It's a template of what can work, but not what can work flawlessly. Nobody wants a replica of melee, because then they'd just play melee. Gimme my melee 2.0. I want my melee 2.0

Sorry but i never said that this game has to be melee in order to be good. In case you didn't read the whole post here's what I wrote on why should recoveries be nerfed

to regain the high tension and fast pased aggression melee had when it came to facestomping your opponent by chasing them off stage.

Please answer with valid criticism of what is actually being said and not whatever you think everyone else is disagreeing with you

Follow these replies as an example of how to present a valid argument against another valid argument in order to reach an agreement
http://smashboards.com/threads/my-problems-with-project-m.335835/page-2#post-15470737
http://smashboards.com/threads/my-problems-with-project-m.335835/page-2#post-15470965

Now to contribute to this thread here's my answer to the OP
I get from your post that it's a matter of balance: players who were thrown off-stage should be given a chance to come back while the opponent should be able to KO them if done properly.
Right now I feel that while it's not actually easy to get enemies off-stage (and even more below the edge) it's very freaking easy to get back into it.
Here's a few reasons of why is this:
-Characters grab on to the edge from very far away, and from there you have to mess up bad to get thrown off again.
-Most Up-B have high priority
-You can grab to the edge while facing the other way on the last frames of most specials.
-If you hit the opponent with your Up-B and he bounces off the wall (and misses the tech) you KO'd your opponent by doing something you would have done anyways at any percent. So no one is in a safe position leaving the stage at low percents

 

[9bit_alt]

For me, the most exciting matches are the ones with a lot of off-the-stage gameplay. I love the high tension of recoveries and the shock of awesome gimps. Gimps are a huge part of why I fell in love with Melee.

From watching a lot of P:M stuff on Youtube and Twitch, I'm seeing in general a lot more top and side boundary kills and a lot less bottom boundary kills than you'd normally get from Melee. I just want more of a balance between "power" kills and gimp kills.

And I don't think this is a super serious problem right now, since we still have more characters and tweaks to be added. We might even just see a shift as the metagame evolves. Tough to say. But recoveries are very very good at the present.

 

[CyberZixx]

I an jumping in this boat. I support nerfing recoverys. Like a vehicle said characters snap to the edge too easy and some moves have a ton of priority making it hard to intercept. Some of them like diddy's just seems a little strong. why can he recover from so far below and then do it again if hit?

 

[leelue]

While people certainly do end up getting not-gimped in this game in more matchups, it's not as though they get back to stage for free.

Three recoveries in particular, lucario and mario and ike, are things that I take special offence from. Not because they are broken, but because I don't think walled stages should be such a big factor. It's one thing for toon link to be able to get some leeway on a stage with his walljump, it's another thing entirely for characters to have such huge dividends. And in Ike's case, to have full-wall stages be banworthy. It's just a little silly.


In any case, while I do think recoveries are a little juiced, I don't think it's terrible. I would not want to live in a world with melees ledge occupancy or no-reverse grabbing that's for damn sure. Those were definitely game improvements. I will admit, however, that there are one or two many recoveries where there's no lag if they land onst-
wait
Fox

 

[Kink-Link5]

No landing lag is the most obnoxious things about recoveries. Sheik's case is acceptable since to get that low landing lag, she has to recover SUPER SUPER high, but in cases like Fox or Diddy it's just a tad silly.

 

[leelue]

I triiiiiiiiieddd to tell dat n***a guru but because fox exists, he felt like he had the right. I mean... he's right...
but
it's just an annoying quality about the game. I don't like lagless ****.
Cough diddy dash attack off platforms

I don't think we need like... sheik super i cant recover onstage ever lag, but a few frames here and there where an opponent can make a decision between the easy grab or the "I hope I make it in time" kill attack would make me happy.

 

[Vashimus]

Sorry... but I'm still gonna have to side with SmashFromThePast on this one. But it's all up to the PMBR really.

 

[leelue]

Oh I think they are in the realm of fine. I wouldn't ***** too much if they stayed where they are. I like offstage play a lot. Especially when you have characters like ganon who can make it dangerous.
But I wouldn't complain* if some extra lag was added to some characters, or even if there was some... odd... kb modifier that made hitting someone who's performing an action that's sending them into special fall do something. Or something.
Idk man I'm tired.

Oh but diddy's forward B can suck a fat one. The one that kills the opponent is the one that also recovers the most for diddy. No decision = wtf GURUKID.

*If I am not complaining, that means something.

 

[Vashimus]

I just don't like resorting to nerfing as an immediate solution, and try to think of other things first. Like, EVERY character's recovery gets nerfed? What do you do with someone like ivysaur then? Make it so her Up-B can be edgehogged again?

But if it would make you guys happy, sure, why not.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Ivysaur's Up B is already downright terrible as a recovery. The fact that she's the only character with virtually no way of recovering high will never make for meaningful interaction between her and her edgeguarding opponent.

 

[leelue]

Remember a time when edgeguarding was easy?​

Pepperidge Farm remembers​

 

[leelue]

Double post​

 

[Rat]

I was thinking that maybe recoveries feel so good because Edge options are amazing in this game.

Ledgejump below 100% is super good.

Ivysaur's Up B is already downright terrible as a recovery.

Nope. This is just not true. She has a pretty darn good recovery.

 

[a vehicle]

Diddy kong's recovery is one of the most broken things in this game.
It makes no sense that a player would be hard to KO just because he knows how to side-b + up-b
Pretty much what leelue said here

Oh but diddy's forward B can suck a fat one. The one that kills the opponent is the one that also recovers the most for diddy. No decision = wtf GURUKID.

It's incredibly difficult to predict, it goes through the entire screen and getting hit by it's high high priority (with a HUGE hit box) side-b or up-b might kill you if you're off stage

Also I think that Ivy's recovery isnt that bad. She can't end up high from her recovery, true, but Ivy has a nice horizontal air speed before adding her dair to the equation (which adds a lot more horizontal movement) so in most cases where she can't go higher the stage she can reach the edge height without using up-b. Even if the opponent is giving you a hard time about it you always have fair and bair which have godly range. If anything Ivy's recovery is OK and should be an example to all others

 

[leelue]

Ivy's recovery is alright. I don't have strong feelings one way or another

 

[The_NZA]

Before we continue the discussion, Leelue had a good point:
"If you have to get bad players to 90 before you kill them (consistently), consider that you aren't killing them effectively to begin with. If they are zelda or sonic or something... sure these characters aren't really gimpable. But the large majority of the cast is. And it's nice that we have bowser and sonic etc who edgeguard with severe disregard for all but the godliest of recoveries. It's nice to spread the strengths around. Insert zero suit samus joke here."
In this game, you have to go out to get the kill far more often, and Melee vets are probably not as adept with their tool set as some of these characters with nasty recoveries. We should consider that the game is young, good people are still mostly playing the vets, and once they transition to the new characters and new off stage play styles, edge guarding will improve.

But let's talk about recoveries anyways.

One thing I have issues with are characters like sonic who's forward b or upb -> airdodge gives them too much security. What do you do against that? If you meteor smash sonic's upb and he meteor cancels–– he is actually helped out. No where in Melee did such a thing exist. If you leave him alone and let him air dodge, he's safe. The only answer you have is to knock him horizontally, but since his up b is so good at coming from below, many characters don't have a reliable way of knocking him away from the stage if they want to. At the same time, I think sonic getting high up quickly is an integral part of his on stage comboability.

So my opinion is that for many of these recoveries, air dodging after an up b is too powerful and should result in some more on stage lag frames, or just be impossible altogether. Maybe after an aerial, you go into special fall (if such a thing is possible to code).

I think it would be useful to argue who has good recoveries to see if specific ones ought to be nerfed. A good recovery = a combination of distance + safety + offensive-potential (the risk an opponent takes to go at you). In melee often times the characters with the best recoveries were about many options and safeness rather than distance, although often distance can mean options (jiggly puff). For the sake of treating this as a new game, I think we should judge everyone's recovery including the vets. Possibly putting them into a recovery tier list can help us determine things.

To abbreviate, I'lll use d for distance, s for safety, op for offensive potential (lol). I don't really think I know the game well enough for my tier system to be accurate but its a start (i paid no attention to ordering). I'm not sure about some characters like Link, Lucario, Pit, ZSS but I get the sense that tethers are extremely strong and people either do not know how to deal with them and the metagame hasn't caught up, or I don't know how to deal with them, or they just are too good. I almost put Lucas into the top 33% as well because of his air dodge to tether range matched with magnet stalling his descent. Tether's and characters with tethers often have high distance, very safe (options/invincibility), with no offensive potential.

Top 33%:
Fox:
Jiggs:
Peach:
Pikachu:
Link?:
Zelda:
Game and Watch:
Diddy:
Lucario:
ZSS:
ROB:
Pit:
Sonic:
Charizard:


Mid 33%:
Mario:
Falco:
Sheik:
Marth:
Ganon:
Ness:
Snake:
Wario:
DDD:
Wolf:
Ike:
Lucas:


Bottom 33%:
Captain Falcon:
DK:
Luigi:
Bowser:
Toon Link:
Ivy:
Squirtle

 

[Juushichi]

I think Wario and Sonic's recovery potentials in this game are a bit too much for my tastes.

In particular, Wario's Up-B's priority and offstage (Down B) Fart not going into special fall. Not related to recovery, but his disjointed meteor that hits from two Wario's away. Sonic could be thrown into an entirely different discussion.

So basically what I'm saying is, **** Wario.

Also, I'd put GnW and Pikachu in the middle 33% category on your recovery thing... and Wario in the top 33%. Actually, **** it I'll do my own:


Top 33%:
Fox:
Jiggs:
Peach:
Diddy:
Lucario:
ZSS:
Pit:
Sonic:
Charizard:
Wario:
Mario:


Mid 33%:
ROB:
Falco:
Sheik:
Ness:
Snake:
Wolf:
Ike:
Bowser:
Game and Watch:
Pikachu:
Link:
Zelda:
Toon Link:

Bottom 33%:
Lucas:
Marth:
Ganon:
DDD:
Captain Falcon:
DK:
Luigi:
Ivy:
Squirtle

 

[JOE!]

Wario's fart is situational though, I mean how often can he do a "decent" one?

Also, **** Zelda's Up B, WD'ing out of it kinda wipes away her mobility shortcomings completely.

 

[StarshipGroove]

Maybe recoveries wouldn't have to be so good if it wasn't for moves like Fox's shine spike or Falco's five seconds of "**** YOU!" dair

maybe some characters' recoveries could be worse than Fox's if they were allowed to be better than him in some other way.

Character balance is key

 

[V-K]

Question: Do all characters in PM on average survive longer than they did in Melee? If yes then I don't think that's good, long floaty fights are boring.

 

[The_NZA]

Meh. She still has mobility issues against characters like falco.

I think the most important thing to realize is that distance is largely a good thing for many of these characters. Because, with added distance you can have more daring off the stage interactions. Ness's new up-b sends him extremely far, and now Ness players don't always have to fret about going off the stage to attack an opponent. However, even though Ness's up-b has distance, it isn't very safe (not many options). Once he starts an up-b, you know where he will roughly land and you can compensate by hitting him off again. I think the major issue to look out for in PM recoveries is: Safety.

1. Safety (in tethers)

Tethers, of all kinds seem safe because once you latch, you have a number of invincibility frames. Now, maybe some smash data scientist wants to crunch the numbers to tell me I'm wrong, and that there are x frames where a person is vulnerable as they are pulled to the edge. To be honest, I don't know those numbers and the whole thing just confuses me. It seems to be super safe but maybe I'm not punishing it right.

2. Safety (in landing) And then there is safety upon landing. A great example is Fox. Fox has distance, fox has safety in terms of options of recovery (everything from shine stall, forward b, up b angles, wall jumping). Fox also possesses safety in terms of landing lag (he virtually has none, it would seem). The only thing Fox doesn't have is op (offensive potential). His forward b wont spike you like falco's, and his upb, while having some power, wont kill you. I think i've seen his forward b combo though, So there is that. Does a character like fox (and so many of the cast) need to be invulnerable with their landing lag?

3. Safety (in acting out of a recovery move)
Sonic is a good example here. He can up b, and still act, and still air dodge on top of that. Pretty damn safe, and I would argue it is important to his combo game but unnecessary to his recovery game. Where as Snake seems like he needs the ability to act because his upb is so slow (its easy to keep knocking him away over and over again).

These are the three areas that I think probably need the most tweaking.

 

[standardtoaster]

I think a large part of people thinking recoveries are "too good" is that they aren't used to new character recovery moves and don't always choose the right option to punish it.

 

[leelue]

Tethers aren't safe. Just grab the ledge, bro.

 

[Strong Badam]

recoveries are, in general, better than the average character in SSBM
whether or not that's a bad thing is subjective

 

[leelue]

The average characters is ssbm are mario and luigi.
Yeah, I think we should be aiming to do better

 

[The_NZA]

Why does grabbing the ledge make tethers unsafe? I don't really understand the numbers. Once they hit a after their tether latches, don't they have invincibility as they meet the edge?

 

[Strong Badam]

if you edgehog they are forced to do a ledgejump, which is then punishable.

 

[The_NZA]

Ledge jump, do you mean the same thing as hitting x when you are on the edge? Is this activated automatically? Or are you saying as they tether, if you are edge hogging, they simply drop off with their jump recovered (as if they hit away when they were hanging off the edge).

 

[Juushichi]

they automatically go into a *specific ledge jump animation if you are occupying the ledge while they pull themselves up over it. Unless you leave the ledge, they cannot grab it traditionally.

*it might just be a regular ledge jump, but i think it might be tether specific.

 

[leelue]

It is specific. It is smaller and more vulnerable

 

[Oro?!]

"Insert Leelue ZSS joke here"

 

[leelue]

"Insert Leelue ZSS observation here"

Fixed

 

[a vehicle]

recoveries are, in general, better than the average character in SSBM
whether or not that's a bad thing is subjective

Subjective, yes, but you can always measure what can be good or bad to the game if you walk them through the philosophy on all the other changes that made vBrawl into P:M.
One thing i know for sure: P:M aims to rewards players for their skill as much as possible, and there's no skill waiting for someone to return to the stage once you knock them off, because recovery is so easy and guarding is so hard.
I personally haven't played brawl seriously ever in my life so I have a one sided point of view, but I do know that i'm against everything that makes this game more brawl like... seriously, i'm even glad that the number of characters is limited, because if that weren't the case then Marvel would be now

If you have to get bad players to 90 before you kill them (consistently), consider that you aren't killing them effectively to begin with.

That may be true, I may also be mad because I could in melee and i can't now.

 

[Oro?!]

You can kill any character at any % still. it's called pick Fox and hit downb.

 

[EpixAura]

Remember that this is P:M. Every character is INTENDED to be as strong as Melee top tiers. It's expected that recoveries and everything else for that matter will be better overall. Therefore, if they had a worse recovery than Melee top tiers, they'd have to add something stupid to another part of the characters game.
Say we nerfed Lucario's recovery. It would now be notably worse than Fox's, right? Therefore, in order to make him on par with Fox, as should be the goal, then when he's on stage, he would have to be overall better than Fox.

Do you want some sort of souped-up Fox on some kind of crack/steroid hybrid drug? Is that what you want?
Kidding, of course. Expecting everyone to be on par with Fox is a bit much, but imagine someone like Lucario or Ike with an even stronger ground game. It's expected that if characters are improved, recoveries will be improved as well. Honestly, Puff and Peach still manage to take the top places in terms of recovering, and their recovery hasn't been touched at all since Melee.

 

[Deleted member]

^ Doesn't Peach's parasol go farther vertically than in Melee?

One of my problems with people saying "recoveries 2 good, nerf!" is that it's usually directed towards newcomers and buffed lower tier Melee veterans. There were already high tier characters in Melee who had great recoveries (Fox, Puff, Peach). Why should they be the only ones allowed to have great recoveries?

 

[Darkgun]

I currently like the recoveries. As it stands (and as EpixAura pointed out), if a character fairs horribly offstage, a likely balance would be to improve their onstage (which would likely make match ups against the character "OhGodpushhimoffpushhimoff". For an example of this, I suspect one could look at C. Falcon or Falco, if I know them as well as I believe that I do). With better recoveries comes more combat offstage, as opposed to exclusively edgeguarding. Also, on the note of dealing with recoveries, It feels as though one can easily trade hits with a recovering character to maintain an edgeguard, even on some of the most awesome recoveries (an attack with the sakurai angle (or perhaps more favorable than that, even) to a recovering Fox, for example?).

Actually, I think this kind of plays to what was stated on the Project M website about onstage vs offstage edgeguarding: the bigger the risk, the bigger the reward, the fewer options a recovering character will have on his next attempt, if there even is a next attempt.

 

[a vehicle]

The risk is higher, the reward is still the same

 

[leelue]

One thing i know for sure: P:M aims to rewards players for their skill as much as possible, and there's no skill waiting for someone to return to the stage once you knock them off, because recovery is so easy and guarding is so hard.

I don't think that this post could be more indicative of where you might be coming from than it already is.

"It isn't skillful to wait
doing the opposite of waiting is hard"

It would go to follow that not waiting, aka going offstage and risking your life, is a skill.

Hm