Sakurai's thoughts on "balance"

[warriorman222]

so, you mean 1.12% more damage than all of marios attacks?

Yes. Imo still doesn't justify horrible recovery, Arthritic speed, loss of spike, worsened projectile, and an offstage game only better than Mac's.

 

[LimitCrown]

so, you mean 1.12% more damage than all of marios attacks?

12% more damage than Mario's attacks, actually. The base damage values of most of Dr. Mario's attacks are exactly the same as Mario's attacks, although the sweetspots of those attacks may be different. The three exceptions to this are Dr. Mario's back air attack, which has a higher base damage value, his down air attack, and the Dr. Tornado, which deals less damage overall compared to the Luigi Cyclone.

 

[Mono.]

Lucina being designed to just be easy mode marth is kind of silly due to the fact that Marth by design is easy to pick up and hard to master, which is arguably a perfect balance in terms of how to handle a character. There's no real reason why she just can't have a more varied moveset to at least be a semi clone. Not even most casuals appreciate how she is in smash right now asshe fights nothing like she does in awakening and is overall very unsatisfying to use. Same thing with Dark Pit. The game doesn't need to be balanced, sure thing Sakurai. But why not make those two more varied characters with a patch? Even doc is functionally different than mario.

Also the whole "Dark Pit having sacred treasures doesn't make sense therefore he should be his own character with very minimal differences" is bull**** because there are so many other things in smash that doesn't make sense in terms of canon.

 

[LimitCrown]

Sakurai never said in the interview that the game didn't need to be balanced. From where are people deriving this assumption?

 

[yahooda]

I agree with some of what Sakurai says in this article, but at the same time I don't get how having all of the characters evenly matched would ruin the game for casual players. I mean, most casual players don't pay attention to tier lists anyway, so how does having even balance between characters affect them? People who just play for fun usually choose the characters from games they like, regardless of how good they are, meaning often times a casual player will pick a terrible character like Pichu or something. If all of the characters were evenly matched that would never be an issue.

 

[warriorman222]

I agree with some of what Sakurai says in this article, but at the same time I don't get how having all of the characters evenly matched would ruin the game for casual players. I mean, most casual players don't pay attention to tier lists anyway, so how does having even balance between characters affect them? People who just play for fun usually choose the characters from games they like, regardless of how good they are, meaning often times a casual player will pick a terrible character like Pichu or something. If all of the characters were evenly matched that would never be an issue.

Casual players pay attention to viability, and tiers. Or else ZeRo wouldn't be maining Diddy because there would have been no outcry, the Diddy tierwhoring wouldn't be in FG, Robin, bowser and Little Mac phases wouldn't have happened, and Little Mac wouldn't have a even dumber recovery, and Bowser wouldn't be losing a game for landing a hard read while having more damage than them(sometimes I let idiot Bowsers land it, then force them off the edge and get back on stage).

Many of them care about tiers. And the way I'm saying it, that might be a really bad thing. Especially considering it can prevent us from having a balanced game anyways.

 

[memk]

Lol right,

I'm entitled to my opinion, and I'll post whatever the **** I want.

Read my post from the first page of this thread, you arrogant ****head.

Of course casuals are necessary. After all, they consist of Nintendo's prime target audience. The corporation has marketed to the mainstream base for years.

But a competetive audience will enjoy a competetive game for years and years to come. That is what strenghtens brand loyalty and creates everlasting legacy.

A competetive playing game will cater to BOTH fanbases, thus increasing revenues.

Casual audiences will buy a game regardless just to play as ****ing Pikachu, and hardcore competetive types will enjoy it 15 years from now.

So yeah.

Oh, and dont get butthurt, but you arent really the epitome of a guy who makes meaningful "statements" yourself.

Seems like you're the one salty here sir/ma'am. You made a nasty post just to agree with me, I didn't say you weren't entitled just that your post had no meaning to the topic at hand yet you took it as that, and you cursed online without having too and could be penalized for such.

I'm sure you sound much better than I do now. Also my statement had way more meaning than your 2012 statement.

EDIT: I read entire threads

 

[Anomilus]

Yes. Imo still doesn't justify horrible recovery, Arthritic speed, loss of spike, worsened projectile, and an offstage game only better than Mac's.

Sorry, but it just seems like you're just not that good at Doc. Especially if you believe his projectile is worse and you're comparing his offstage game to Little Mac's (who has virtually none). You also mind as well be making Doc sound as mobile as Robin, calling it "arthritic".

Perhaps you're one of those who believe if Doc isn't moving similarly to Mario, he mind as well not be moving at all. In that case just leave Doc alone and focus on what makes Mario so good instead of fishing for reasons to trash Doc. There's unfortunately a lot of work that needs to be done to change the perception of Doc in the general public who's been lead to believe Doc is among the worst in the game as supposed simply being average in comparison to the other bros.

Doc basically is more counter-offensive, using his moves to turn the tables on offensive opponents whereas Mario is offense oriented, beating down foes with high mobility and string-friendly attacks. Luigi has limited and weird mobility, but of the three bros he's by far the best at setting up for his kills, something the other two have difficulty with.


This seems like a tangent, but I think it highlights how we could be scratching our heads at Sakurai's opinions of balance one minute, and the next we're bashing and trashing characters without giving them the chance they deserve. What does that say about us? Doc's the worst. Samus's the worst. Wii Fit Trainer's the worst. This character's bad, that character's bad... And more often than not a decent argument for such conclusions are never found. Are we really qualified at this point to concern ourselves with Sakurai's handling of this game's balance?

 

[warriorman222]

Sorry, but it just seems like you're just not that good at Doc. Especially if you believe his projectile is worse and you're comparing his offstage game to Little Mac's (who has virtually none). You also mind as well be making Doc sound as mobile as Robin, calling it "arthritic".

Perhaps you're one of those who believe if Doc isn't moving similarly to Mario, he mind as well not be moving at all. In that case just leave Doc alone and focus on what makes Mario so good instead of fishing for reasons to trash Doc. There's unfortunately a lot of work that needs to be done to change the perception of Doc in the general public who's been lead to believe Doc is among the worst in the game as supposed simply being average in comparison to the other bros.

Doc basically is more counter-offensive, using his moves to turn the tables on offensive opponents whereas Mario is offense oriented, beating down foes with high mobility and string-friendly attacks. Luigi has limited and weird mobility, but of the three bros he's by far the best at setting up for his kills, something the other two have difficulty with.


This seems like a tangent, but I think it highlights how we could be scratching our heads at Sakurai's opinions of balance one minute, and the next we're bashing and trashing characters without giving them the chance they deserve. What does that say about us? Doc's the worst. Samus's the worst. Wii Fit Trainer's the worst. This character's bad, that character's bad... And more often than not a decent argument for such conclusions are never found. Are we really qualified at this point to concern ourselves with Sakurai's handling of this game's balance?

I use Dac as a secondary. When I say it doesn't justify all that, it means that I think that he's worse than Mario. Doesn't make him terrible, even witht hat he could very well be top tier I only think he's worse( only slightly, SJP frame.. what? 0? punish is 2 gud) than Mario.

Also arthritic was a joke, considering he IS a doctor... Funny? Not even a little? Never mind then. I'm also better with Doc than Mario, I simply think he is worse than Mario, just like every other heavy version of a character, ever. Except for melee Doc, which was basically straight upgrade Mario with a worse recovery that didn't matter in a game where almost nobody was getting back onstage anyways. But they didn't have to lower Doc's damage output. The nerfs he got here were enough imo.

I prefer counter-offensive, so I prefer using Doc. I'm not bashing him, simply saying that his 12% more power(which doens't even raise dmg of some moves by 1%) doesn't make up for those weaknesses. Almost every other character can defend themselves even with their laggy attacks offstage, yet if Dr. Mario uses a fair, dair or something slow (bair and uair, somtimes nair are fine) even quite a bit above the ledge, he can possibly die, and it's telegraphed as hell. Little MAc has no laggy aerials, but he depends on every moment to get back onstage, so defense is out of the book. Ganon can defend himself with pretty much any move he has(Except Down-B and Neutral-B), but has an even more predictable recovery route.

So yeah. This character is garbage, that character is garbage needs to stop. I agree with that. The whole cast is Brawl mid tier at worst. I didn't say that Doc was trash, although I can see how that was interpreted. But what was wrong with what I said?

 

[Artmastercorey]

I'm one of those people who thinks making everyone "equal" a bad thing. I don't believe there has been a game like that so I'd like to see something like that tested out I guess. Again, it would be interesting to TEST, but we don't have a game like that right now. I think of balance this way:

Lets say characters have different, but pretty close movesets. There's 3 stats STR, VIT, AGI and everyone had 5 points of it. So really you can play any character you want and they're all different in a small way, but I mean, can you really call it diverse gameplay? If everyone had down-throw up-air combo (in some shape or form) is it really diverse? Balanced games to me would take that kind of stuff and be something like the up STR and lower VIT type of "balance". Balance like STR slightly better than VIT but slightly worse than AGI balance. This is just an analogy though, Smash has a large amount of factors.

Now I definitely don't want characters to be "equal" in a sense. Would I like nearly everyone to be what you call "viable"? That would be AWESOME. And I mean viable in their own unique way. I understand though, doing that is extremely hard to do.

I'm not turned off by the idea, I'm just stating my opinion. It's not bad to look at it both ways. As much as I'd like to see all characters used I also want to see all sorts of play styles and setups used too. If 25/50 characters can do this then that's still pretty good. I think what Sakurai is thinking is not that the game would be less fun, but as far as competitiveness goes, would it negatively impact the overall game? We can speculate, but we can't really know right now.

I honestly like the stats for the most part. To me, that can mostly stay the same. I think the balancing needs to come in "end lag" and "landing lag".

 

[EpixAura]

Someone in the comments on the article said it well. The casual players would barely notice a nerf to Diddy Kong, if at all. People aren't asking Sakurai to redesign the balance from the ground up. All we want is 1 or 2 small changes. We don't need every character completely balanced, but it would be nice if there wasn't a clear-cut 'best' character.

 

[MajorMajora]

Someone in the comments on the article said it well. The casual players would barely notice a nerf to Diddy Kong, if at all. People aren't asking Sakurai to redesign the balance from the ground up. All we want is 1 or 2 small changes. We don't need every character completely balanced, but it would be nice if there wasn't a clear-cut 'best' character.

And no where in the article does Sakurai say he isn't considering making changes like that. If anything, he seems more open to it now than before.

 

[warriorman222]

And no where in the article does Sakurai say he isn't considering making changes like that. If anything, he seems more open to it now than before.

He says he won't base balancing on the hardcore if it'll ruin the fun of the game. Except he thinks that putting Ridley into the game would automatically either ruin him or break him yet a 14 year old manages to do neither of those and keep Ridley the sadistic, ferocious enemy he's been. And also trying to keep true to series while leaving Falcondorf without swords nor projectiles.

 

[guedes the brawler]

Well he said that balance shouldn't be based solely on competitive play.

and especially based around the wishes of a minority within a minority, like, say, wanting wavedashing back. (no offense if people reaidng this are part of the minority, it's sad but true)

and he needs to know how much these changes affect casual play. some of the characters that need help the most in smahs games are heavies, who are too slow to be that effective in competitive play generally speaking. speed them up, and they are good to go for competitive matches.... but they'd absolutely destroy on casual matches where the meta is less advanced on defensive tactics like dodging and punishing.


though i do think that if he decides to implement stuff like teching, l-cancel, meteor cancels and auto cancels, he should mess around with them and see how the game flows with those used at a constant 100% success rate.

 

[EpixAura]

And no where in the article does Sakurai say he isn't considering making changes like that. If anything, he seems more open to it now than before.

Hopefully it's just me, but reading the article, I automatically interpreted it as Sakurai using the (already flawed) reason he can't have perfect competitive balance as an excuse to not bother balancing the game any more, especially since according to another article a while back, Nintendo is going to be very reluctant to patch the game. Either way, I certainly wouldn't expect any balance changes whatsoever until Mewtwo's release, and if we don't get one then, we probably never will.

 

[PCHU]

This seems like a tangent, but I think it highlights how we could be scratching our heads at Sakurai's opinions of balance one minute, and the next we're bashing and trashing characters without giving them the chance they deserve. What does that say about us? Doc's the worst. Samus's the worst. Wii Fit Trainer's the worst. This character's bad, that character's bad... And more often than not a decent argument for such conclusions are never found. Are we really qualified at this point to concern ourselves with Sakurai's handling of this game's balance?

I don't think there's a single "worst" character right now, but I do think that there's a clear distinction between what characters are all-around solid and what characters have obvious issues.
Samus doesn't have much in terms of mobility (and I haven't faced very many), but she seems to have enough range to support a semi-strong keepaway/zoning game.
As far as WFT goes, she's deceptively decent due to her very specific shifting hurtbox, but her hitboxes are very lacking, especially in comparison to characters with wide, sweeping hitboxes like Sheik; her projectiles are okay, but sideB can leave her pretty open and neutral B can have trouble KOing.
Doc has enough attack speed in general to not be considered bad, but from what I've seen and heard, it's unfortunate that he comes off as a direct downgrade from Mario; other than that, I haven't seen where all he's actually lacking in comparison to the cast.

Some of us are less qualified to concern ourselves with Sakurai's balance because we don't approach things from different angles to flesh out our opinions, but I don't think that's grounds to discredit everyone in the community.
We've got a few pretty intelligent people in here, after all.

 

[warriorman222]

Super Smash Flash 2 is clear designed for competetive. No dodge nor ledge grab out of hitstun, worse recoveries, extra hitstun and more. But it's fine for casual play, and outside of big stuff like DK recovery halfned in height(he could go offstage, spike you from literally anywhere and come back with the game's best recovery)and ichigo getting overhauled each demo, I haven't noticed any patch changes despite knowing all the effects, and despite them giving detailed changelogs.

Dude, if you make the game for us, you won't ruin competitive. The only time in SSF2 the heavies(DK and Ichigo) were broken in casual play was when they were broken/near broken in competitive play. After they were toned down, they became fine again.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

To be honest, I don't think Sakurai or any competent developer would want to release a balance patch at this stage in the game's meta. We're practically missing four characters, (miis and mewtwo) a stage, (miiverse) and we're not even using all the tools the game is giving to us yet, because custom moves haven't become standard. Customizations actually fix quite a few problems of the lower tier characters. Ganon gets a good recovery, Palutena gets good options, etc. Give Sakurai and Sora/Namco a break. Wait for Custom moves to become standard and for the metagame to actually settle down before making any more balance patches.

 

[Anomilus]

I use Dac as a secondary. When I say it doesn't justify all that, it means that I think that he's worse than Mario. Doesn't make him terrible, even witht hat he could very well be top tier I only think he's worse( only slightly, SJP frame.. what? 0? punish is 2 gud) than Mario.

Also arthritic was a joke, considering he IS a doctor... Funny? Not even a little? Never mind then. I'm also better with Doc than Mario, I simply think he is worse than Mario, just like every other heavy version of a character, ever. Except for melee Doc, which was basically straight upgrade Mario with a worse recovery that didn't matter in a game where almost nobody was getting back onstage anyways. But they didn't have to lower Doc's damage output. The nerfs he got here were enough imo.

I prefer counter-offensive, so I prefer using Doc. I'm not bashing him, simply saying that his 12% more power(which doens't even raise dmg of some moves by 1%) doesn't make up for those weaknesses. Almost every other character can defend themselves even with their laggy attacks offstage, yet if Dr. Mario uses a fair, dair or something slow (bair and uair, somtimes nair are fine) even quite a bit above the ledge, he can possibly die, and it's telegraphed as hell. Little MAc has no laggy aerials, but he depends on every moment to get back onstage, so defense is out of the book. Ganon can defend himself with pretty much any move he has(Except Down-B and Neutral-B), but has an even more predictable recovery route.

So yeah. This character is garbage, that character is garbage needs to stop. I agree with that. The whole cast is Brawl mid tier at worst. I didn't say that Doc was trash, although I can see how that was interpreted. But what was wrong with what I said?

As somebody that also seconds Doc and thinks he's worse than Mario but still prefers using him, I'm ultimately pointing out how his flaws are very often overstated and overly focused on.

His recovery is about the only thing I would really harp on, and even then I think it's at least better than Ganon's, and neither of them should ever be compared to Little Mac. Mac is a whole different tier of bad recovery. Doc can challenge some aggressive edgeguard attempts, but he has the mobility and option to avoid it outright except against the speedy types. Ganon may challenge better, but his mobility is terrible and he only has a tiny second jump to assist. Ganon has a few really strong cards, but Doc has more cards to play, and they're certainly nothing to scoff at. Meanwhile Little Mac has literally four options, none of them particularly strong or available at any moment.

But outside of his recovery issue, he really shouldn't be underestimated. Not his stage mobility, not his projectile, not his offense. Just beware of inadvertently feeding the stigma out there.

 

[LimitCrown]

He says he won't base balancing on the hardcore if it'll ruin the fun of the game. Except he thinks that putting Ridley into the game would automatically either ruin him or break him yet a 14 year old manages to do neither of those and keep Ridley the sadistic, ferocious enemy he's been. And also trying to keep true to series while leaving Falcondorf without swords nor projectiles.

Except that is missing the point of what he is saying. He also stated that he won't take feedback from the online statistics and certain competitive players at face value. Ridley shouldn't be used to support the argument that you're trying to make since that is completely different from the matter of how the game will be patched, and Ganondorf didn't use a sword in Ocarina of Time, the first and last Zelda game in which he appeared before Super Smash Bros. Melee was released.

 

[finalark]

Why not create a game that challenges players, with a steep learning curve, that feels like a truly rewarding and embracing masterpiece to indulge in.

Because the only country where Monster Hunter sells like hotcakes is Japan. And I can guarantee that most people who play it over there are the "hardcore" crowd.

A steep learning curve is not a good thing. It's actually something you usually want to avoid. Generally speaking, easy to learn, hard to master is what you should be going for.

 

[yahooda]

Casual players pay attention to viability, and tiers. Or else ZeRo wouldn't be maining Diddy because there would have been no outcry, the Diddy tierwhoring wouldn't be in FG, Robin, bowser and Little Mac phases wouldn't have happened, and Little Mac wouldn't have a even dumber recovery, and Bowser wouldn't be losing a game for landing a hard read while having more damage than them(sometimes I let idiot Bowsers land it, then force them off the edge and get back on stage).

Many of them care about tiers. And the way I'm saying it, that might be a really bad thing. Especially considering it can prevent us from having a balanced game anyways.

That's true, I suppose it mostly depends on who you define as "casual." I usually consider a casual player to be someone who plays the game without learning about any techniques or figuring out which of their character's moves are the most efficient, etc. The types of players that I think you were referring are the ones that I consider sub-competitive players who, although they don't go to tournaments, take the game fairly seriously and use advanced-ish techniques/exploits. I suppose I make that distinction because I've played against casuals who they tell me they're really good, but then it turns out they didn't even know that you can shield or fast-fall for example.

 

[Aninymouse]

I've read the article. Nowhere does Sakurai say he emphatically will not make balance changes to the game. No, what he did say, more or less, is that he will not be bossed around. Sakurai will make the balance changes he sees fit to change. Yeah, okay, if he doesn't nerf the Hoo-Haa, people will be upset. But you know what? Some people will be upset no matter what. You just can't please everybody.

I think, so far as I can tell, Smash 4 is the most balanced Smash to date with the biggest cast to date. That's quite frankly incredible. It won't ever be perfect, but it's pretty damn good, even now.

I agree with @ MrGame&Rock , in that Mewtwo, the Miis, and customs not being fully in the mix yet does paint an incomplete picture. However, Mewtwo and customs don't tone down the Hoo-Haa. If the Hoo-Haa is the worst thing in Smash 4 and it needs nerfing that badly, and since it sets up out of a grab, the properties of Diddy himself would have to be altered. Likewise, if characters that are seen lower on the tier list need a little something to help them out versus the top tier characters, individual buffs may be necessary.

Look at the last patch for the 3DS version: we don't know if the changes in the last 3DS patch that aligned it with the Wii U version were simply due to oversights in the tandem development, or if they were legitimate balance considerations made in between the release of the 3DS and Wii U versions. However, assuming the changes were indeed balance considerations for both versions of the game, look at the content of that patch. Most of the changes were buffs. Ike and Shulk got massively buffed. A few top 10 characters got slight nerfs, with only Greninja being heavily nerfed. Even then, Greninja went from "stupidly good" to "mostly great," so it's not like the frog was ruined. There were some oddball changes, and many characters stayed the same, but by and large the changes that patch brought about were seen as very positive. Hell, they even "fixed" DI, which was no small thing.

I have faith that whatever balance changes the future might hold, they will be pretty good.

 

[Zero Meddler]

Balance is necessary for every game ,casual or competitive. If "flawed" characters are left in, it detracts from the fun everyone can have. No one wants to lose because of balance issues. Additionally, making the game more on the competitive side wouldn't ruin the fun the series has. Melee and Project M can still be played at a casual level and those are the two most competitive iterations of Smash out there.

I see what Sakurai wants from the game and it's perfectly understandable. He wants to keep it fun. He wants to keep it just a video game and not have a lot of seriousness behind the game (unlike the friendship ruining Mario Party or in some cases Mario Kart XD jk). He also makes the point that he doesn't want to "over-adjust in a negative direction". Fair enough. The fear of balancing is doing it right and incorrect balancing can and will destroy a game. Such risks need to be taken though, I'm 99.997% sure that the casuals who love Smash would still stick to it, even if it was adjusted to be more competitive. Why? Because it's a fun series and we ALL enjoy playing it. The beauty of it is that you CAN play it casually (items on, hazards on, Special Smash, customs AND equipment) and you CAN play it competitively and still get a great amount of enjoyment.

(=/ Probably repeated myself a bit BUT my point still stands...)

 

[warriorman222]

As somebody that also seconds Doc and thinks he's worse than Mario but still prefers using him, I'm ultimately pointing out how his flaws are very often overstated and overly focused on.

His recovery is about the only thing I would really harp on, and even then I think it's at least better than Ganon's, and neither of them should ever be compared to Little Mac. Mac is a whole different tier of bad recovery. Doc can challenge some aggressive edgeguard attempts, but he has the mobility and option to avoid it outright except against the speedy types. Ganon may challenge better, but his mobility is terrible and he only has a tiny second jump to assist. Ganon has a few really strong cards, but Doc has more cards to play, and they're certainly nothing to scoff at. Meanwhile Little Mac has literally four options, none of them particularly strong or available at any moment.

But outside of his recovery issue, he really shouldn't be underestimated. Not his stage mobility, not his projectile, not his offense. Just beware of inadvertently feeding the stigma out there.

And those few strong options Ganon has can cover him almost all the time, whereas Doc has less time to defend himself, and more time to get within the small time frame to not drop to low. If fair endlag is enough to condemm you, it really shows he has a strict timeframe, which is why he was compared to Mac, who also has one(to a ridiculously higher degree obviously) But still, I don't think his recovery defense is better than Ganon's. And while it' his only real flaw, it's still enough for me to put him right below Mario regardless of where they end up.

 

[PCHU]

And those few strong options Ganon has can cover him almost all the time, whereas Doc has less time to defend himself, and more time to get within the small time frame to not drop to low. If fair endlag is enough to condemm you, it really shows he has a strict timeframe, which is why he was compared to Mac, who also has one(to a ridiculously higher degree obviously) But still, I don't think his recovery defense is better than Ganon's. And while it' his only real flaw, it's still enough for me to put him right below Mario regardless of where they end up.

While Doc may not have the strength and range of Ganondorf, his options in general are much safer if only because they're all-around faster, not to mention they can be backed up with pills, and I honestly think that people aren't recognizing how powerful of an asset simple projectiles can prove to be.
The hitstun increase on projectiles proves as a heavy incentive toward more frequent use, not to mention they can pretty much shut down some characters that have few/no answers to them (Ganon, Dedede, pretty much anyone slow).
You might have to get in close to do much with Doc, and that's where Ganondorf might come off as slightly better due to his mobile command grab and above average tilts, but the fact that Doc has any sort of influence at long range means a lot, not to mention Ganondorf does have a bit of startup on his moves outside of jab.

Overall, I think Doc has more potential, but I won't disagree that Ganondorf isn't all that bad; uair puts in a lot of work with its many uses and jab is enough to get him out of plenty of bad situations, not to mention usmash has some ridiculously good recovery time to trick people into falling for a tilt or jab.

 

[warriorman222]

While Doc may not have the strength and range of Ganondorf, his options in general are much safer if only because they're all-around faster, not to mention they can be backed up with pills, and I honestly think that people aren't recognizing how powerful of an asset simple projectiles can prove to be.
The hitstun increase on projectiles proves as a heavy incentive toward more frequent use, not to mention they can pretty much shut down some characters that have few/no answers to them (Ganon, Dedede, pretty much anyone slow).
You might have to get in close to do much with Doc, and that's where Ganondorf might come off as slightly better due to his mobile command grab and above average tilts, but the fact that Doc has any sort of influence at long range means a lot, not to mention Ganondorf does have a bit of startup on his moves outside of jab.

Overall, I think Doc has more potential, but I won't disagree that Ganondorf isn't all that bad; uair puts in a lot of work with its many uses and jab is enough to get him out of plenty of bad situations, not to mention usmash has some ridiculously good recovery time to trick people into falling for a tilt or jab.

I didn't say anything about viability nor the matchup, I was talking about recovery defense.

I agree mostly with what you just said, and where did I say anything that would show otherwise?

 

[Anomilus]

And thing is I'm not saying Dr. Mario has better "recovery defense" OR that he's on par with Mario. I am saying Dr. Mario has much better evasive recovery, and that along with decent recovery defense puts Dr. Mario's overall recovery over Ganondorf in my eyes. Again, it's having a few really strong cards vs. having a larger collection of good cards. Now if Ganondorf had one or two options that totally trumped everything Dr. Mario was capable of, it would be a different story.

 

[warriorman222]

And thing is I'm not saying Dr. Mario has better "recovery defense" OR that he's on par with Mario. I am saying Dr. Mario has much better evasive recovery, and that along with decent recovery defense puts Dr. Mario's overall recovery over Ganondorf in my eyes. Again, it's having a few really strong cards vs. having a larger collection of good cards. Now if Ganondorf had one or two options that totally trumped everything Dr. Mario was capable of, it would be a different story.

I didn't(and if did, shouldn't have) say that Dr. mario's recovery is worse. it can go higher, has an actual jump for support, extreme flexibility, and a million other thing Ganon can't even imagine. His recovery is more vurnerable is all I was saying unlike Mario, who can spike you for trying to edgeguard him. We're arguing over the same thing, and we never disagreed to begin with.

 

[chipndip]

I understand Sakurai's point, but making every character equal does NOT make the game less fun. If anything, it makes the game more enjoyable to play and watch and have some great character diversity.

You objectively can't do this without making more characters more similar to each other, so I think that's what he meant.

Really, however, they could just nerf Diddy and Sheik a tad and call it a day when Mewtwo comes out.

 

[crysisnova]

very interesting

 

[PCHU]

I didn't say anything about viability nor the matchup, I was talking about recovery defense.

I agree mostly with what you just said, and where did I say anything that would show otherwise?

Oh, I wasn't necessarily arguing your points, I was just sharing my perspective alongside yours.
I don't see much to debate, honestly, I just thought I'd lay out some stuff that others may not have fully considered.

 

[gameplayzero]

To be honest, I don't think Sakurai or any competent developer would want to release a balance patch at this stage in the game's meta. We're practically missing four characters, (miis and mewtwo) a stage, (miiverse) and we're not even using all the tools the game is giving to us yet, because custom moves haven't become standard. Customizations actually fix quite a few problems of the lower tier characters. Ganon gets a good recovery, Palutena gets good options, etc. Give Sakurai and Sora/Namco a break. Wait for Custom moves to become standard and for the metagame to actually settle down before making any more balance patches.

not a bad idea. Focusing on game completion and letting the meta develop to see what truly needs work, instead of having to make multiple balance patches .

 

[Saikyoshi]

Uh... wow. He's kind of, no, he's very much a complete idiot.

If he thinks having all characters being actually playable somehow makes the game less fun... Yeah, as cliché as it is to blame him for stuff, someone seriously needs to slap some common sense into him.

 

[_gold_]

Balancing is fine, if fact it's encouraged. But if your focusing the balance around making the game family-friendly, that's might end up being a problem for the franchise.

 

[ThatAintFalcon]

I wonder why Marth was nerfed so much from brawl? Forward air has noticeably more end lag and all of his attacks have less range. Also, tipper down air no longer spikes...I cri evrytiem. All I want is the ken combo.

 

[Locuan]

Also, tipper down air no longer spikes...

It does spike. Specifically, the move's hit-box is active from F9-F13. The hit-box for the D-air spike is on F11 (yes only one frame) and is directly below Marth/Lucina. It's not that hard to hit with it on opponents recovering low.

 

[Saikyoshi]

I wonder why Marth was nerfed so much from brawl? Forward air has noticeably more end lag and all of his attacks have less range. Also, tipper down air no longer spikes...I cri evrytiem. All I want is the ken combo.

He was just as overpowered in Brawl as he was in Melee, being at #5 on the final tier list – I've even heard Brawl Marth's Dancing Blade be called the best move in the game. He just didn't shine because there happened to be a couple of characters even more overpowered in that game.

So yeah, nerfing Marth I at least get.

 

[ThatAintFalcon]

It does spike. Specifically, the move's hit-box is active from F9-F13. The hit-box for the D-air spike is on F11 (yes only one frame) and is directly below Marth/Lucina. It's not that hard to hit with it on opponents recovering low.

It seems easier Marth than Lucina, actually because his spiking hitbox seems to be a bit larger, extending from his feet to the tip of the blade in an arc of maybe 30 degrees. Lucina's seems narrower and only seems to spike at the very bottom tip of the blade. Also, in past games a tipper down air would spike, no matter where the opponent was in relation to Marth, and since I know how to properly space D-air to tipper it would have been nice if this spiking mechanic was still included in the game.

 

[Deleted member]

I actually understand where he's coming from for the most part except this:

We attempt to maintain a wide dynamic range with the balance, so I feel like we need to watch that we don’t over-adjust in a negative direction, like cutting down abilities or trying to have all characters playable on an equal basis. Having everything be totally fair would boost the competitive aspect, but runs the chance of it no longer being about playing a game. Mediocrity would be the worst thing for this.

Firstly, I'm a bit confused cause in-general, having more characters 'decent' would make people who play the game casually be more entertained since they are better balanced to face others. Being more "fair" does boost the competitive aspect, but also the casual aspect as well, equally.

I also don't understand how it leads to mediocrity? Honestly, diversity is much better than a select few characters being able to have clear advantages over most of the characters and is the exact opposite of mediocrity.