Recovery discussion, good and bad

[leelue]

Well, do a list of the bad characters. You get mewtwo and then 13 nesses

 

[JOE!]

now, outside those guys and outside of Mewtwo, how good are recoveries on a scale of blow - suck?

 

[Kink-Link5]

Good: The other half of Pikachu, Yoshi, Mewtwo

Moderate: Mr. Game and Watch, Link, Pichu, DK, Tongue Link

Bad: Mario, Luigi, Ness, Roy, Bowser, Kirby

 

[\Apples]

How much do you guys think the ability to defend yourself while recovering helps a recovery on average?

Some characters don't really have great tools to do this, some are exceptional, others have a little bit of say as they're making their way back. For instance, Dedede has that nasty fair that's honestly really scary to jump out on. If you're trying to gimp the guy, he can fair and uair at the ledge and just swat you away with his multiple jumps. Zard is a little worse at this though. Even characters like Ganondorf can kind of do something using his uair to intercept an off-stage edgeguard attempt before he Up+B's, the Links can boomerang (even though this can be really bad against certain characters), etc. But then you've got Ness, G&W, etc.. even spacies can't really afford to defend themselves because they fall too fast and often, they're recovering with their special attacks a good distance away from the ledge, outside of the off-stage edgeguarding zone for most characters, yet their recoveries are still pretty solid.

 

[The_NZA]

I don't think thats a huge problem for a lot of characters. DDD is one of the easiest charaters to edge guard if he upbs. Ness can actually put on a little counter aggression as he returns to the stage.

 

[\Apples]

I'm not talking about if he Up+B's, everyone knows that. I specifically said I was talking about the character's ability to attack while recovering...

 

[Kink-Link5]

There's a reason Peach only dies to full kills and edgehogs.

 

[The_NZA]

I'm not talking about if he Up+B's, everyone knows that. I specifically said I was talking about the character's ability to attack while recovering...

I'm referring to exactly what you are talking about. Ness's up b is so big that he can actually put on some aerial aggression if an opponent comes out after him, and delay his up b. His upb range is so big Ness can afford to recover from very low if he chooses to bait and hit an opponent coming off the stage to deal with him.

 

[leelue]

Not bad: Yoshi

Not bad: DK

please
I need a yaoming

 

[Kink-Link5]

Leelue you don't even play melee hush.

 

[leelue]

Why would I play melee

 

[AncientPancakes]

Sonic's recovery is ridiculous.

 

[leelue]

You shoulda seen it before
2.0, Mmm

 

[JOE!]

Good: Fox, Falco, Jigglypuff, Peach, Samus, half of Pikachu, The other half of Pikachu, Yoshi, Mewtwo

Moderate: Mr. Game and Watch, Link, Pichu, DK, Tongue Link
Moderate?: Marth, Falcon, Doc, Sheik, Ice Climbers, Ganon

Bad: Mario, Luigi, Ness, Roy, Bowser, Kirby

just doing a tally

 

[Kink-Link5]

I'd put Doc, Ganon, Marth, and Falcon in bad personally.

 

[TheKittyloaf]

I'd put Doc, Ganon, Marth, and Falcon in bad personally.

agreed. their options are so linear and predictable.

 

[JOE!]

Good: Fox, Falco, Jigglypuff, Peach, Samus, half of Pikachu, The other half of Pikachu, Yoshi, Mewtwo

Moderate: Mr. Game and Watch, Link, Pichu, DK, Tongue Link, Sheik, Ice Climbers

Bad: Mario, Luigi, Ness, Roy, Bowser, Kirby, Doc, Ganon, Marth, Falcon

 

[MonkUnit]

please stay on topic and keep discussion to pm characters only.

 

[JOE!]

This relates to P:M due to the view of how much recoveries have improved from melee. If we can get a gist of who had awesome recoveries there, which appears to include Fox/Falco/Jiggs which are the top 3 characters. So, in the mission to make everybody awesome/viable, is it actually bad to give out better recoveries when the top tier of melee had 75% good / 25% moderate recovery?

 

[CyberZixx]

I find many of the new recovery's in junction with the way the ledges now works makes gimping harder. At least with Marth, won't pretend to know about other characters.

 

[ItalianStallion]

Of course recoveries are going to seem over-powered and gimping and edguarding seem underpowered this young tinto the game. We have to remember that in Melee, it was basically the top seven characters edguarding each other. Now there are a bunch of equally viable characters all with different match-up quirks. We honestly just don't know enough about the game yet to develop strategies that parallel the melee strategies we had. In comparison, Melee was a piece of cake considering how few characters we had to think about. Thinking that we can have the same kind of play already in P.M. is just cocky.

Certain characters have amazing recoveries. Some have good recoveries. Some have average. The idea is to make sure all characters are relatively balanced. Sonic's recovery and speed is amazing, but he has low priority and is combo'ed pretty easily. Part of a character's balance is their recovery. So I guess my question is: are there characters that people feel are out of balance due to their recovery, or is the problem that there are recoveries that need nerfing, but in it's place the character needs to be buffed slightly in order to keep the balance?

 

[John12346]

Well, I think it's fine if a recovery gets you some distance, as we've got characters that can do that in 64, Melee, and Brawl...

My only concern lies in why there are some dedicated recoveries that don't put you into freefall, especially when those recoveries already have certain other benefits, like the recovery having a huge hitbox, the recovery having invincibility, the recovery covering a large amount of distance, etc... Because traditionally, in Smash, having properties like that on your dedicated recovery is supposed to force you into special fall after use, so as to not serve as a get out of jail free card, for example.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Precisely. Particularly concerning are how low some landing lags are on top of the nerfed edgehog. When the recovery needs to finish from up high like Sheik's, it's more acceptable since it adds diversity and depth to the recovery options: Low will ledgesnap, middle will land sooner, and high has low landing lag, while each have very obvious drawbacks as well. That's the kind of depth that is healthy for recovery. A recovery should never be "If I recover like this, I cover 2/3 edgeguarding options at once," especially if the recovery move does that by itself inherently.

 

[ItalianStallion]

Well, I think it's fine if a recovery gets you some distance, as we've got characters that can do that in 64, Melee, and Brawl...

My only concern lies in why there are some dedicated recoveries that don't put you into freefall, especially when those recoveries already have certain other benefits, like the recovery having a huge hitbox, the recovery having invincibility, the recovery covering a large amount of distance, etc... Because traditionally, in Smash, having properties like that on your dedicated recovery is supposed to force you into special fall after use, so as to not serve as a get out of jail free card, for example.

So like G&W for example?

If so, I will agree that his Up B is a beautiful Get Out of Jail Free card as well as a beautiful combo extender. It also has great vertical distance for recovering. Also, the hitboxes it has are small, but very useful. All in all it is a great move. In fact, it is an absolutely fantastic move.

So do you feel that the move makes G&W overpowered? Is G&W too powerful a character with the move? Is he out of balance with the rest of the cast? If so, then we have a dscussion on our hands. If not, then I am slightly confused why the move would be considered a problem. Sure. it doesn't put him into special fall, but that's just one of his strengths people will have to take into account when they play against him. If it doesn't make him too powerful, why should we be looking at the move?

 

[TheKittyloaf]

If we can get a gist of who had awesome recoveries there (in melee), which appears to include Fox/Falco/Jiggs which are the top 3 characters.

falco.
falco.
FALCO??!!

 

[leelue]

please stay on topic and keep discussion to pm characters only.

Like Joe! said, this was on topic. Please tell us to go on topic when we are off topic. Like when we talk about pokemon in the social discussion thread.

Sonic's combo'ed pretty easily.

And thus ends italian stallion's credibility

 

[Jolteon]

falco.
falco.
FALCO??!!

falco has a good recovery.

 

[TheKittyloaf]

falco has a good recovery.

i mean, don't get me wrong. his double jump is wonderful, but when you spawn at death percentage i would say you don't have the best recovery, nothing to be compared with jiggs or peach or any of the other "good recoveries".

 

[Jolteon]

i mean, don't get me wrong. his double jump is wonderful, but when you spawn at death percentage i would say you don't have the best recovery, nothing to be compared with jiggs or peach or any of the other "good recoveries".

I don't think his double jump height makes his recovery good (the distance on his recovery is pretty short), but distance aside his recovery is great. He has a ton of options, most of which are great, some of which you can't react to and have to guess in order to beat, which is really really important in Melee since you can react to and beat nearly every recovery option for 90% of the characters in the game with the best characters. If Falco gets a good mix-up he can flip the situation around (e.g. with DJ dair to counter run off -> dj aerial or after up+bing on stage). There's also stuff he can do to recover safely even after your opponent hits you (wall tech instant side-b, instant side-b if you have enough height etc.), so there will be situations where you have to read Falco several times to successfully edgeguard him, where-as he just needs one read to get back on stage.

The weaknesses in Falco's recovery (distance traveled and having poor options when below the edge) can mostly be worked around simply by having good DI, but the sheer versatility and low lag that his recovery has are really important traits that very few characters in the game share.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Falco has a good recovery. In some, but not all, situations, it is better than Fox's precisely because of its shorter length. There's a certain point in recovery where edgeguarding Falco really isn't a very strong option due to the risk associated with it and the myriad options he has. Recovering straight up or upward diagonal while lined up with the ledge, for example, is much better with Falco since he'll land sooner, especially on any of the stages with platforms.

No, it isn't as good as Peach or Jigglypuff's recovery. No characters' in Melee are. It is far and away better than the likes of, say, Sheik's, though, which is of comparable distance and malleability, with far greater drawbacks.

 

[TheKittyloaf]

i can definitely agree that it's more viable than fox's, which in most situations is hard to sweetspot, especially if forced to recover direct vertically. i'm not saying it's a bad recovery by any means of the word considering all of the mixups he can pull off with walljumps and side + b, side + b cancels and ledge cancels. what i was disagreeing with is the quote./ awesome ./endquote as joe put it. or comparing it to "the best" recoveries in which you can make it back to the stage as long as you don't get blast zoned. also, thinking about this in more of a P:M perspective as well, since it's the only game that i've invested a good bit of time into for the past 3 months or so.

 

[John12346]

So like G&W for example?

If so, I will agree that his Up B is a beautiful Get Out of Jail Free card as well as a beautiful combo extender. It also has great vertical distance for recovering. Also, the hitboxes it has are small, but very useful. All in all it is a great move. In fact, it is an absolutely fantastic move.

So do you feel that the move makes G&W overpowered? Is G&W too powerful a character with the move? Is he out of balance with the rest of the cast? If so, then we have a dscussion on our hands. If not, then I am slightly confused why the move would be considered a problem. Sure. it doesn't put him into special fall, but that's just one of his strengths people will have to take into account when they play against him. If it doesn't make him too powerful, why should we be looking at the move?

Well, I'm sure we can all agree that GaW is butt at the moment, but... I think we shouldn't be looking at this at a case by case basis, but rather at the situation as a whole. The reason I bring it up is that traditionally, in the Smash series, most notably 64 and Melee but even to some extent, Brawl, recovering has always meant to be disadvantageous, risky, and a battle of wits between the recoverer and the defender, with the recoverer paying careful thought to his height, spacing from the ledge, and timing of recovery, and the defender guessing or reacting appropriately to these actions. I just don't think it falls into the line with the rest of the game of P:M where there are characters who can get out of most, if not all situations with their recoveries who can UpB and get away with it, even if the defender knew EXACTLY what the recoverer's actions were going to be, for example.

With all that said, yes, GaW is still a bad character, and it seems that it wouldn't serve to make him any less viable by screwing around with his recovery, but certainly that can all be alleviated by giving him certain other buffs in other departments of his gameplay, and/or even modifying his UpB into something good, but acceptable, right? Just off the top of my head, one could make GaW's recovery function like Peach's UpB, where GaW could possibly switch between his parachute and special fall, for example, idk.

 

[standardtoaster]

we could have all of his moves ohko and people would still say gnw is bad

 

[KayB]

Landing Lag, or rather the lack thereof, annoys me a little. I'm not saying give those characters an insane amount of landing lag, but if I throw an f-smash as soon as they hit the ground they shouldn't be able to block it. I'm fine with Mario's wall-jump recovery because its still flawed with or without it. Ike's Quick Draw recovery is a bit silly though.

I'm all for GnW having a complete redesign honestly.

 

[Nahpro]

I'm all for GnW having a complete redesign honestly.

This makes me legitimately upset.

Anyway, G&W's up-b is pretty integral to his combo game and honestly, it's probably his most important move. It makes G&W far more interesting and although some people might think it unusual since it doesn't follow melee's canon dogma about special fall, all I can say is that G&W is an unusual character and I think that should be perfectly okay. Variety in character choice and diversity of play styles are the life blood for fighting and multi-player intensive games and key to a game's longevity. Just because a character doesn't click for you personally, I don't think you should write him off completely.

To me, he's probably the most enjoyable character I have ever played in a smash game. In comparison, I can barely stand playing as the rest of the cast to be honest... G&W too fun.

 

[KayB]

This makes me legitimately upset.

Anyway, G&W's up-b is pretty integral to his combo game and honestly, it's probably his most important move. It makes G&W far more interesting and although some people might think it unusual since it doesn't follow melee's canon dogma about special fall, all I can say is that G&W is an unusual character and I think that should be perfectly okay. Variety in character choice and diversity of play styles are the life blood for fighting and multi-player intensive games and key to a game's longevity. Just because a character doesn't click for you personally, I don't think you should write him off completely.

To me, he's probably the most enjoyable character I have ever played in a smash game. In comparison, I can barely stand playing as the rest of the cast to be honest... G&W too fun.

I find GnW fun too, but his weight makes him a glass cannon. His hammer is also too situational, and I have tons of ideas that could be better. He just needs to be a lot heavier and he'll be fine, but as of now he's too easy to kill.

 

[ItalianStallion]

Well, I'm sure we can all agree that GaW is butt at the moment, but... I think we shouldn't be looking at this at a case by case basis, but rather at the situation as a whole. The reason I bring it up is that traditionally, in the Smash series, most notably 64 and Melee but even to some extent, Brawl, recovering has always meant to be disadvantageous, risky, and a battle of wits between the recoverer and the defender, with the recoverer paying careful thought to his height, spacing from the ledge, and timing of recovery, and the defender guessing or reacting appropriately to these actions. I just don't think it falls into the line with the rest of the game of P:M where there are characters who can get out of most, if not all situations with their recoveries who can UpB and get away with it, even if the defender knew EXACTLY what the recoverer's actions were going to be, for example.

With all that said, yes, GaW is still a bad character, and it seems that it wouldn't serve to make him any less viable by screwing around with his recovery, but certainly that can all be alleviated by giving him certain other buffs in other departments of his gameplay, and/or even modifying his UpB into something good, but acceptable, right? Just off the top of my head, one could make GaW's recovery function like Peach's UpB, where GaW could possibly switch between his parachute and special fall, for example, idk.

I would argue that G&W is completely balanced with the rest of the cast actually. He just takes some love and dedication. He probably seems pretty bad because he's a quirky character with weird properties on his moves. But I think that he, when used by the right people, can be completely beast. Plus like KayB said, he is extremely fun to use.

As for the Up-B, I find that it's OK for a few characters to have that kind of special property. It varies the characters a bit and keeps match-ups interesting. While sticking to some sort of tradition can be important sometimes, I would say that in this case, having G&W's Up-B be changed would only make his playstyle less fun to watch. Chasing a foe with an Up-B > Uair for a kill or doing pseudo pillaring combos with him using Up-B and Dair make him fun to use and watch, which I believe is quintessentially Melee.

And thus ends italian stallion's credibility

Oh no! I'm so upset! I now have no credibility because leelue said so! /sarcasm

 

[John12346]

Well, I'll take your word on GaW's viability. I can only go by what I've seen in others' matches since I've never really actually played against any GaWs before.

Plus, it's not exactly what I'm getting at, y'know? What I'm trying to say is that, when looking at something like no-special fall UpBs being an issue or not, we should look at how it impacts the game as a whole, rather than how it affects certain characters' viability. If characters get inadvertently nerfed as a result of one change then certainly they could be buffed in other ways to compensate, right? In GaW's case, if he loses his quintessential launcher in UpB due to him suddenly having to special fall after using it then perhaps another move could be adjusted in a way to work in a similar fashion, for example. Or... we could revisit that idea of grounded UpBs not putting you into special fall...

But you get the idea, though, right? As I'm more trying to direct my theory towards a global game mechanic(namely, the notion that no-special fall recoveries exist for certain characters), I feel that we should look past how individual characters would be affected by the change. We are working with a game that is updated rather frequently. If a character is negatively affected in one way, then if it calls for it, a change to positively affect him or her could be put into place all the same.

So with that said, let me just reiterate my reasoning. From playing Project:M and watching all of the gameplay that I've clocked with it, I got the feeling that the devs were trying to make the entire cast's recoveries more flexible, in ways that it's semi-easier than Melee to recover in general. However, all the same, it also seems that the devs wanted recovering back to the stage to still be a challenging, yet rewarding effort, where the recoverer is, of course, rewarded for planning out his recovery moves properly with being back on the stage, and this facet of gameplay is similar to Melee of course.

But then... I look at characters with no-special fall UpBs, and wonder what the deal is there. There are only a few characters with this kind of thing, of course, but the biggest offenders, from what I've seen, are Sonic and Snake. The issue is, with the recoveries the way they are, they can practically use them anywhere the heck they want while recovering while still covering a lot, if not all of the possible responses the opponent can take and get off scot free. It doesn't help in the slightest that these recoveries are also coated in invincibility, distance, and crazy hitboxes, but in addition to that, they're also allowed to move after the move terminates, which in Project:M, is an extremely short amount of time, no matter which move we look at, allowing the character to cover their mistakes with an appropriate attack if need be.

From my perspective, I feel like that these kinds of recoveries are alien to the kind of game Project:M is trying to be. I know it's not trying to be Melee, but I also know it's trying to be an engaging and challenging game, which is why I can't help but question why these kinds of recoveries are even present in this game, ya' dig?

crap sorry about the wall of text...

 

[Ace55]

Good: Fox, Falco, Jigglypuff, Peach, Samus, half of Pikachu, The other half of Pikachu, Yoshi, Mewtwo

Moderate: Mr. Game and Watch, Link, Pichu, DK, Tongue Link, Sheik, Ice Climbers

Bad: Mario, Luigi, Ness, Roy, Bowser, Kirby, Doc, Ganon, Marth, Falcon

The difference between Falco's and Jigg's recovery is so absurdly large that it's crazy to put them in the same category. Also Yoshi, really?


Godlike: Jiggs, Mewtwo, Peach, Samus, Pikachu/Pichu (I might be missing something but aside from damage what's the difference?)

Good: Young Link, Link, Fox, Falco, Ice Climbers

Decent: Zelda, Sheik, G&W, Mario, Doc

Bad: Marth, DK, Kirby, Yoshi, Falcon

Horrible: Roy, Ganon, Sopo, Bowser, Ness, Luigi


Now in P:M we have Sonic, Pit and arguably Zelda joining the Godlike tier. A boatload of chars joining the Good tier including a lot of veterans. Diddy joining the 'omfg this is retarted' tier. And all the Horrible tiers have either disappeared (Roy, Sopo) or moved up to Bad (Ganon, Bowser, Ness, Luigi).

 

[KayB]

I would argue that G&W is completely balanced with the rest of the cast actually.

I'm still doubtful. A lot of the top tiers can destroy him simply because of his weight. I mean he's nearly as light as Puff, and Puff has rest, bair, and an amazing recovery. GnW has a situatonal hammer, slow/punishable aerials, and a mediocre recovery. And Marth (and I mean a good one) vs GnW is nearly unwinnable; I don't think there should be any match-up that bad.

And I'm not really a fan of the "luck" factor of the hammer. I don't think any move in this game should be based on "luck," unless it was a system similar to Luigi's revolver system.