Smash 4 issues (my friend's thoughts)

[Kirby Phelps (PK)]

So I was playing some For Glory matches with a friend and a few matches annoyed him. He mentioned that in Smash 4, more than ever, the winner is determined by match ups. If you have a bad match up, you have very little chance of winning. Like for example, someone with projectiles fighting someone without projectiles. The one without projectiles will most likely lose and has to try extra hard to win while the projectile user doesn't have to try as hard. An example is when we both fought this Toon Link that would constantly spam arrows and boomerangs, forcing us to try and come close, and then he'd just grab and smash attack if the situation called for it. He had to switch to Greninja and spam shurikens back to stand a chance. He felt the fight wasn't fun and spamming projectiles wasn't even skill anyway. He said that this wasn't as much of an issue in past games like Brawl. If someone had an advantage, it wasn't as glaring as it seems to be in Smash 4. Another example is a match he fought against a Shulk while using Jigglypuff. He had a really tough time getting in because of Shulk's range. And because Jigglypuff's so light, he'd get KO'd very early on.
Another issue he has is with counters. He feels like they're very cheap and just not fun to deal with. With the Jigglypuff vs Shulk example, there was one match where his Jigglypuff was actually doing well and getting some good hits in. But all it took was a strong counter from Shulk and he died because of Jigglypuff's light weight. He felt really cheated out of that match.

I just wanted to know what you guys think. Do you agree with him? Does he bring up some legit issues with Smash 4 or are there just get arounds that he's not seeing yet?

 

[SwoodGrommet]

So basically this thread is going to be another "Spamming and countering takes no skill" thread.

Okay. I have complete opposite thoughts about the game than your friend has. I don't know if it's because my personal main has no horrible match ups, but I really honestly don't think the game is so centered around match ups as you think. When you were fighting that Toon Link, it would help to know who you were playing as before the Greninja switch.

In my opinion, projectile "spamming" characters are easy to deal with once you learn the mu and have sufficient experience with it. The same goes for characters who "spam" counters. When I first played smash, these two things annoyed me for so long. Too long, in fact. Toon Link and Link in particular were both very troublesome characters for me to deal with. Now, they're not difficult at all for me (I'm talking about the spammy ones, good Links can be quite the challenge). It really helps to pick up a character who has a reflector. I have fought Links who literally end up projectile spamming themselves, as they seem to have no idea what a reflector is or what it does.

As for counters, they are even easier to deal with, in my opinion. If you meet someone who is a little too trigger happy with their counter, it is so easy to take advantage of that. For example, many people say that characters with a counter are impossible to juggle, therefore have an intense advantage over them. Well, instead of rushing into a follow up aerial every time, simply bait the counter out of them by running up to them as if you were about to attack. The counter position is usually very long, and very punishable. Once you bait them into it, make sure you don't attack during the counter's active frames, which can be deceptively long.

I think complaining about match ups is a little silly, to be honest. There will always be characters that have unfortunate match up with other characters. That is why some people have Secondaries. But no, I don't think that Smash 4 is as mu heavy as you think. The difficulty is just getting past those common issues such as projectile heavy or counter heavy characters.

 

[HylianBerserker]

"Now, they're not difficult at all for me (I'm talking about the spammy ones, good Links can be quite the challenge)."

Thank you, kind sir.

 

[Supersmashbrothers.]

Projectiles are easy to deal with once you get the hang of it. I think the main rule is to not get close. That's their main plan. There's only so little damage/knockback Link's projectiles could do. Avoid them and don't move to their arms reach and they should give up and try different moves.

Now, Charizards on the other hand...

 

[Kirby Phelps (PK)]

When you were fighting that Toon Link, it would help to know who you were playing as before the Greninja switch.

I was playing as Little Mac and my friend tried Captain Falcon before he switched to Greninja.

 

[Raijinken]

Matchup has always been a factor. It is a bigger factor now than before, but that alone indicates a new (and different) balance system. It's also why recycling the same character swap policies in tournaments may not be really ideal.

Personally, I'd rather balance be matchup-based than outright mediocre (looking at you, every past Smash game). It also encourages players to learn more than one character, which is apparently utterly preposterous since the half-week or so it takes to learn a character in detail is too great a time commitment to taint that knowledge with skill in other characters. (That was sarcasm, I support multi-maining, or discarding the term main altogether if it's irrelevant).

And as to what @ SwoodGrommet said, I would definitely believe there are no outright bad matchups for Pit. He has good recovery, multijumps, one of the better projectiles in the game, a reflector, a dodge-punisher, and generally average-to-strong options all around. As in the past, I'd say a character's matchup generalities are what determines their tier perception. Sheik and Diddy are beatable, yeah, but compared to a lot of characters, they're harder to counter. Contrast, say, Little Mac, whose dominance on the ground does him no favors against any character with the ability to spam a low-backswing projectile. He thus suffers from a lot of bad matchups (on top of playstyle issues and stage selection) and takes far more patience, skill, and strategy to win with than, say, Diddy (not that Diddy takes no skill, but it's far less hard to banana->dthrow->uair players of mid or higher skill than it is to stay away from the edge as Mac).

Part of matchups is that the game is still rather new, and by no stretch of the imagination are all characters well-represented at any level of play. There's a niche player for every character, but it's really no surprise that most players and commentators don't really know the finer points of a matchup against, say, PacMan, Olimar, Wii Fit, or Game&Watch. Characters such as them simply don't get enough play (partially the high-tier bias that goes into the play-to-win mentality in general, partially simply being relatively unpopular characters) for detailed matchup and counter analysis.

On the counters note, though, there's a reason counters rarely work in higher level play - they're a sign you're being too predictable. They're only an issue in the CPU's hands since the L9 CPU has frame-perfect timing and reads inputs.

 

[Xermo]

Lol this game isn't matchup dependent. For glory is not an accurate representation of how to play and deal with certain characters. If you really wanted to beat toon link as Mac, then you'd approach slowly and play patiently. Block his easy-to-see-coming projectiles and punish his rolls/grabs/smashes because you know he's gonna do it.

 

[Raijinken]

Lol this game isn't matchup dependent. For glory is not an accurate representation of how to play and deal with certain characters. If you really wanted to beat toon link as Mac, then you'd approach slowly and play patiently. Block his easy-to-see-coming projectiles and punish his rolls/grabs/smashes because you know he's gonna do it.

That's a lot harder on Mac than it is on Tink. Which is a sign of an uneven matchup.

Every asymmetrically balanced game is based on matchups.

 

[Xermo]

That's a lot harder on Mac than it is on Tink. Which is a sign of an uneven matchup.

Every asymmetrically balanced game is based on matchups.

Of course the MU is uneven, but the game isn't based on MUs. Player skill is a much greater factor in determining a victor than "oh he picked x characters when I'm y character. Gg."

 

[Raijinken]

Of course the MU is uneven, but the game isn't based on MUs. Player skill is a much greater factor in determining a victor than "oh he picked x characters when I'm y character. Gg."

There is no unwinnable matchup (that we know of, assuming players of comparable skill). But there are soft and hard counters that will force the other player into a considerable disadvantage. It's to be expected.

 

[Kirby Phelps (PK)]

He further explained to me that with the Toon Link match for example, he only felt like the projectile spamming was really dumb, not the parts where Toon Link actually grabbed and attacked with melee attacks. I guess because all Toon Link needs to do is constantly pressing B and side-B and it works. I guess he doesn't really like something that's so effective but takes no actual skill on the player's part. I kinda feel the same way about Bowser-ciding and Ganondorf's suicide move, but he still feels like that takes more skill because you have to know when to use it and bait the opponent to the edge. I think what he means is a good player is someone who doesn't rely on these tactics. Like, a good Toon Link is someone who doesn't rely too heavily on projectiles.

Personally, I don't think counters are dumb. As someone who plays Shulk, I think it's very important when to use his counter. Using it constantly is never a good idea because it becomes predictable. On average, I use it maybe 2 or 4 times a match. I do find people that spam projectiles annoying though, especially when it feels like my only option is to spam back. But I also feel like there's something else I could do, something more effective that I'm just not getting. There have been plenty of times when I play a projectile user against someone without projectiles in For Glory, but I still end up losing pretty badly. Maybe they know something I don't.