Recovery discussion, good and bad

[CyberZixx]

I'm not a fan of luck move either. I like what they did to Peach's forward smash and how they made DDD's sideb have gordos much more often. However I like Peach's turnips the way they are. Getting something as good at a stitch face should be rare.

 

[BTmoney]

this is me not reading the thread.

Mario has god tier recovery mix ups

 

[9bit_alt]

I like G&W's random side-B. It can make for some really epic moments. May not be great for the player at the time, but it's great for highlight videos.

 

[Kink-Link5]

90% of the time you want to use Hammer is in an Edgeguard, and with the current system, it's extremely effective at doing so two thirds of the time.

This isn't a thread about game and watch though, so refrain from discussing him unless it has directly to do with his recovery, how to edgeguard him, how he can edgeguard people, or what changes would be welcome to any of the aforementioned principles.

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

If someone has any thoughts on this opinion, I'd like to hear them.
When you are recovering as Ivy, I'd say it's your opponent's fight to lose.
Ivysaur's recovery game is a palm-full of efforts to delay the inevitable tether.
Can you imagine playing a game where, in order to win, you somehow have get your opponent to mess this up?:

Not much Ivy can do to evade that.

 

[Deleted member]

I'd be totally okay with that being a major weakness of Ivy's if he didn't suck in so many other ways

 

[Kink-Link5]

I'm inclined to agree baring the statement that it's an inherit weakness. Marth never seemed to mind having a ****ty recovery. The better question is, would you really WANT Ivysaur to be an actually decent character shutting down 80% of options an opponent has to approach with and losing handily to the characters that can still get through?



Recovery doesn't mask the problems inherit to characters, nor does it ruin what is a decent character otherwise.

 

[Deleted member]

Screw you and the Yoshi you rode in on

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

Ivy's recovery was definitely decided to be bad with pros and cons in mind, and I'm totally OK with that. Recovery is just one strength or weakness at play that affects a character's balance.

Though, I wouldn't go as far as implying it doesn't actually affect their likely-hood to win a match (because they're still decent besides that). Surviving being knocked offstage is THE thing that decides stock loss. Recovery can ruin someone, but it doesn't; because, luckily for us, the devs aren't insane.

Speaking of poor recoveries, what would you all consider the worst in the game? At first I'd say it's Ivy, but you have to consider the hugely helpful Dair, without which Ivy would never survive.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Ivysaur
ZSS
Ness
Falcon
Ganon
Marth

Off the top of my head. I'm not in a full mindset for all the characters in the demo at the moment, but those ones stand out as having genuinely poor recoveries.

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

Falcon and Ivy for F tier recovery. I'm inclined to say that Falcon is worse despite having the option to recover high.

 

[Vashimus]

That is clearly a Bulbasaur, good sir.

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

That is clearly a Bulbasaur, good sir.

It's the Ivy on the inside that counts.

 

[Spiffykins]

I dunno if it's been discussed, but Lucario's recovery is super good. It depends on the stage obviously, you have to be really careful not to get screwed over on certain stages, but in general being knocked off stage is like, whatever man. My DI is awful and I still make it back almost every time. If any of you are facing a Lucario and aren't sure if they'll make it back, best just to assume they will.

 

[Jandlebars]

That is clearly a Bulbasaur, good sir.

Hey, if you were about to be sex-kicked to your impending doom, I'm sure you'd feel like your pre-evolved form inside as well. :x

 

[a vehicle]

Ivy's recovery is indeed very weak, but when I do things right most of the time i manage to shove enemies of the edge with my super-long range Fair and space out with my very useful Dair. So Ivy is IMO a very good example of a challenging recovery.
I like how Mario's recovery got very very buffed but now he's a lot more reliable on gimps, not like the rest of the cast.

I dunno if it's been discussed, but Lucario's recovery is super good. It depends on the stage obviously, you have to be really careful not to get screwed over on certain stages, but in general being knocked off stage is like, whatever man. My DI is awful and I still make it back almost every time. If any of you are facing a Lucario and aren't sure if they'll make it back, best just to assume they will.

Well, that evens out by the fact that Lucario sucks in-stage... right?

 

[Darkgun]

Well, that evens out by the fact that Lucario sucks in-stage... right?

The more time I spend with Project M and looking over a variety of different game balance methods in general, the more I feel as though the "more power here equals less power there" mentality, though it may seem effective at first, will often result in things like Brawl's Ganondorf ("Let's make him kill really well if he lands a hit and make landing hits harder with slower moves and hitboxes just a tiny bit bigger than the hurtboxes." At least, that's how it looks to me.), in which the character is overall less effective than someone with a flaw versus strength design that uses a much broader view.


But, for the sake of science, let's have a look at Lucario here with these two different methods of balancing.
So if one were to arbitrarily quantify the character's overall power with a number, which isn't really important, the value would always remain the same, as one side would have less as the other had more. Using this balancing method, Lucario's on-stage game should be less effective than someone with a poor recovery (Falcon or Marth, for example). And in quite a few rights it is... sorta, which brings me to the next method of balancing.

The broadened method of balancing dictates that the arbitrary number decided before is somewhat blurry, so to speak. Examining Lucario's recovery closely, it consists of a DJ, Double Team, and Extreme Speed, which inevitably give him plenty of horizontal and vertical coverage when returning to stage. To add to this, he can sweetspot the ledge with Extreme Speed and the attack deals damage. Those are some pretty awesome traits. So where is the flaw that makes up for this awesome strength? Spread out across the character, even into his recovery itself.
Looking at the recovery first, DT is predictable, and a fairly easy read and punish, as it has a rather long startup and end lag. Extreme Speed, while not as easy to predict, is easy to read (has a sweetspot, aiming for sweetspot), and the actual hitboxes of the attack are fairly tight with the character's hurtboxes, deal one damage and low (or none. Not sure which.) knockback (spare the end hitbox), which can therefore be easily, if not safely, challenged. Forcing a high recovery also subjects Lucario to a rather long vulnerable period upon landing from fall state, whereas to my knowledge forcing low prevents him from sweetspotting the ledge (if this is possible I still don't know how). (Note that this changes slightly if Lucario has an Aura Charge)
Now then, overall character traits. We'll just look at the flaws, to save time. He is medium weight, and his fall speed is such that the character is fairly easy to combo. He has an exceptionally small shield for his size, meaning that it can take far less punishment before shield pokes become viable against him. His shield also never covers his entire body iirc. His air speed is rather lacking, which means his ability to give chase and recover horizontally is reduced. His WD to my knowledge is considered rather poor. In addition, a vast number of the moves in his moveset possess small hitboxes and substantial endlag, thus severely reducing his approach and defensive spacing options (though this point is probably better left up to debate, in my opinion.).

Lucario doesn't have worse on-stage because his off-stage is decent; he instead has flaws spread out across his entire design to help counterbalance his strengths, such as a long distance recovery and rather ludicrous looking offensives.

Quite a few characters seem to have this design it feels like. But poor Ivysaur is kinda just outa luck, from what I can see (Awesome illustration, by the way!). I'm sure if I played the character I could explain the counterbalance to such an easy to edgeguard recovery, but, as one might have guessed, I play Lucario as a main.

 

[ItalianStallion]

Wait, why do people think Ivy's recovery is bad? If she sees a sex kick coming down, she just has to pull up. She gets invincibility when she does so, right?

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

Wait, why do people think Ivy's recovery is bad? If she sees a sex kick coming down, she just has to pull up. She gets invincibility when she does so, right?

No, she's vulnerable. However, on rare occasions, you may pass through the edge-guarder in your 3 frame transition to the edge.

 

[Juushichi]

90% of the time you want to use Hammer is in an Edgeguard, and with the current system, it's extremely effective at doing so two thirds of the time.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

No.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Because a meaty 6 gimp, meaty 9 ohko, meaty 7 heavy hit, and meaty 8 ice gimp are terrible.

 

[Spiffykins]

Lucario doesn't have worse on-stage because his off-stage is decent; he instead has flaws spread out across his entire design to help counterbalance his strengths, such as a long distance recovery and rather ludicrous looking offensives.

I read and am responding to the whole post, just cut it off to save space. Anyway, there's a few things you're missing about Lucario's recovery.

He can cancel down b into a dair, giving him a great horizontal boost. He can cancel up b and air dodge or aerial attack to cover his landing, or cancel just to reduce the end lag. He can add up all his tools as such: down b > dair, DJ, wall jump/wall jump climb, up b wall cling & jump, up b to edge or cancelled into airdodge/aerial. On stages such as Drac's, FD, and FoD, this kind of recovery is entirely applicable due to the large blast zones and accommodating walls. There's also a bit of mixup potential, like b-reverse onto the stage with a side b or aura sphere after a wall jump for a surprise offensive recovery.

Overall I wouldn't say he should generally be "easy" to edgeguard even if you know what to look out for. Still, all this fluff goes out the window to one good shine spike or whatever else, and Luc's recovery options are heavily stage dependent in addition to being rather technical, so recovery wise he's still nowhere near as good as some other characters.

 

[Jandlebars]

To be fair, how many characters don't get stuffed up from a good shine spike?
...I'm genuinely curious now, actually. >__>'

 

[Juushichi]

Because a meaty 6 gimp, meaty 9 ohko, meaty 7 heavy hit, and meaty 8 ice gimp are terrible.

No because nairing, dairing, fairing, hell everything but uair pretty much does a safer job without the guesswork. If you want to be fancy and roll the die, sure. If not, take any of GnW's meaty aerials and have a party.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Good thing we've established what was already known then:

Judge is random
Game and Watch's other options are more reliable
Don't use Judge.

 

[Darkgun]

I read and am responding to the whole post, just cut it off to save space. Anyway, there's a few things you're missing about Lucario's recovery.

Well, I did note, albeit only in passing, that if Lucario has an Aura Charge the recovery situation changes, and as you've pointed out, it gets pretty darned fancy, though also note that trading off an Aura Charge for a recovery means the loss of an exceptionally powerful combo tool or kill move. Not the point though, as, offensive forfeit aside, it does give a quick bolster to his survivability offstage.

Overall I wouldn't say he should generally be "easy" to edgeguard even if you know what to look out for. Still, all this fluff goes out the window to one good shine spike or whatever else, and Luc's recovery options are heavily stage dependent in addition to being rather technical, so recovery wise he's still nowhere near as good as some other characters.

Let's just change one "good shine spike or whatever else" to "practically any spike if he's used his jump". There. Fixed that for you.

Also, I am now also curious as to what can contend with a good Shine Spike. I'm sitting here going through the characters, and the best I can come up with is Sonic, Zelda, Diddy Kong, D3, Snake, Luigi, Ness, Pikachu, and ROB (though only to a point). And most of those are maybe at best.

 

[ItalianStallion]

No, she's vulnerable. However, on rare occasions, you may pass through the edge-guarder in your 3 frame transition to the edge.

I guess I just haven't experienced what you're talking about. And I also thought Ivy was pretty effective at a large variety of match-ups. Her deceptive speed and range cause her to keep the opponent right where she wants him and still rack up damage while simultaneously healing herself with her bulb attacks. Her edgeguard game is effective based on bair alone. A back throw she does near the edge will send opponents far away and low. Against floaties she has a long range seed that goes straight up as well as a risky but rewarding up-B vine whip. Along with that she can heal herself for a bunch of damage while waiting for a floaty like Peach or Jiggs to recover. Her solarbeam finisher has the unique strength of being a quick across the stage hitbox. Her nair is a very effective close range tool that Ivy can use to keep the damage coming when the opponent gets in close. And her Razor Leaf is a good projectile. Really her worst match-ups seem to be against characters like Fox, Falco, Wolf, Falcon, and ZSS. Besides that I think she does pretty well against the rest of the cast.

But if you guys are correct about her recovery, and that there is nothing she can do against a sex kick coming down, then that flaw would be enough to warrant a recovery fix. But I always assumed that since the tether ledge snap was so quick, it effectively takes away those types of tricks. You can mix up tethering early or late, and when you do finally tether, snap to the ledge immediately. If an Ivy player does it right and knows how to mix it up, she should be able to get past it.

 

[Juushichi]

Good thing we've established what was already known then:

Judge is random
Game and Watch's other options are more reliable
Don't use Judge.

If you're trying to cover the ledge and ledgeguard someone with the most efficiency, 90% yes don't use Judgement.

 

[Machiavelli.CF]

There are still things you can do as Ivy to slightly alter how your tether plays out.
-You can pull in immediately after Up-B so Ivy pulls to the ledge before she swings down
-You can quickly: (1) Up-B (2) press down to cancel the tether and enter normal fall (3) Dair at the same time as release to maintain height and take up time and (4) Up-B again in hopes that the brief fake-out moment will confuse the foe's timing.
-Ivy has Dair and a double jump at her disposal to delay the tether and try to make the timing of the Up-B a surprise of sorts.
However... tricks like these are small, and opponents can still react and cover your options. Iv'y recovery is bad, but It's not un-winnable.

 

[Shouxiao]

Recover is fine in this game. Things like edgeguarding and gimp are much more rewarding.

How about these ideas?
For Ivy would a recovery option similar to Link's hook/clawshot? Let her air dash and quickly do a shorter ranged Z grab to the stage.
For Ness one improvement for his recovery would simply be not making PK Thunder disappear if it hits another character or character projectile. Basically make his PK Thunder like Lucas in that aspect.

 

[ItalianStallion]

Recover is fine in this game. Things like edgeguarding and gimp are much more rewarding.

How about these ideas?
For Ivy would a recovery option similar to Link's hook/clawshot? Let her air dash and quickly do a shorter ranged Z grab to the stage.
For Ness one improvement for his recovery would simply be not making PK Thunder disappear if it hits another character or character projectile. Basically make his PK Thunder like Lucas in that aspect.

I like both of these ideas. Simple, but elegant. However, I don't think it's possible to code a zair for someone who doesn't naturally have one. I could be wrong though.

 

[John12346]

So... uh... what do other people think about those no-special fall recoveries?

Should they stay or should they go, in your opinions?

 

[Ace55]

They're fine imo. Watch needs it, Snake needs it, ROB desperately needs it and Sonic will be an annoying prick no matter what they do to him.

 

[John12346]

Well, it's my belief that they don't accurately fit with the kind of game Project:M is trying to be, as, unlike a LOT of other things in the game, not a lot of thought actually needs to be put into a recovery if there's no special fall behind it. Think about it in terms of the precedent of it existing, rather than how individual characters are affected, because if a character gets nerfed in one way such as gaining special fall from a recovery then certainly he could be buffed in other areas to compensate, right? This ain't Sakurai Brawl land, we got a dev team that actively listens to concerns over the game, which is really cool.

Those are my thoughts anyway, but hey opinions opinions, right?

 

[The_NZA]

I and many others have already expressed this opinion: For characters like sonic, they should only be able to act out of an upb if it starts grounded. I actually think they should review many characters with this approach because it could lead to some interesting options open up. DDD desperately needs the ability to act out of a grounded upB (and it should have less startup when grounded) so he can vertical chase. Snake sort of needs his ability to act out of it, I think. As does Rob. As does GnW.

For sure, NOONE should be able to air dodge out of an actable up b. That's just stupid.

 

[a vehicle]

Game and Watch needs the no-special fall after recovery, but that's because the way he's now.

Those things should go back where they belong (with the vBrawl community) and we should take the burden of improving character's specs other than recoveries.

 

[CORY]

Overall I wouldn't say he should generally be "easy" to edgeguard even if you know what to look out for. Still, all this fluff goes out the window to one good shine spike or whatever else, and Luc's recovery options are heavily stage dependent in addition to being rather technical, so recovery wise he's still nowhere near as good as some other characters.

actually, unless you go deep with that shine spike, lucario can make it back quite often...

 

[_R@bid_]

Of the characters with no special fall up bs, the only problem is Sonic, though it'd be best to keep that trait at least when he's grounded. G&W, Snake, and ROB both have weaknesses in their recovery that make it a necessity. Really, I rather like the idea of recoveries with no special fall, and should be considered for others. It can make for some cool combo potential, and more interesting recovery and edge guarding. Airdodging after can go, though.
As for recoveries in general, they're fine. It's just a few outliers on both extremes that could do with a fix. Fox could do with higher up b landing lag, and Sonic just needs a redesign in general- I have lots of sympathy for the PMBR trying to balance that monster- while Ness would be better with transcendent priority on his PK Thunder 1. There might be a more more, but I can't think of them ATM.

 

[John12346]

Well, I'm more bringing in my experience with Brawl over this. You knock a character with a recovery like this offstage, they decide it's okay to recover 5 million miles into the air because it's inconsequential as there's no real drawback to it(can attack while falling, no landing lag if no action taken, etc...), and that can get quite bothersome.

I agree that it doesn't make a game good or bad necessarily, but as I've also said, I don't feel like it fits in with the rest of what Project:M is trying to make us do as players. Everyone else has a restrictive recovery for the most part, where everything must be planned out carefully for success, but then we have a few other characters that can just UpB whenever they choose and get out of having to recovery properly like the rest of the cast. And remember, as I've said, if characters have weaknesses in their recovery that need to be compensated by no-special fall, then perhaps it can be replaced by some other factor. More distance, bigger hitbox, or more invincibility, for example? Low landing lag after a long fall ala Sheik or Fox?

That is, of course, if no-special fall recoveries are actually a problem.

Also, I don't really consider R.O.B. not going into special fall an issue, because he travels a really small, straight distance for each burst with no notable hitbox, but I do think the time between using UpB and being allowed to perform another action should increase slightly... w/e

 

[TheReflexWonder]

I dunno. Being above your opponent is often one of the worst positions you can be in. I think it's alright in and of itself. They're still fairly predictable (except for Sonic, because of his momentum-shifting D-Air, I guess), so the type of recovery they provide by themselves doesn't seem bad to me.