Data The online in Ultimate is lacking in features and isn't very good. Here's why. (A definitive list)

[Deleted member]

"The online sucks". It's something I read a lot but no one ever gets really into why. So here we go.

General

1. INPUT LAG, this cannot be overstated. All the matchmaking fixes and options in the world do not mean a thing if input lag sticks around. The game is completely different online because of this and it's embarrassing.
2. No ability to see if your opponent is on WiFi or wired, no ability to see ping or even a more vague bar connection icon before accepting the fight.

Quickplay

1. Many have reported not getting their rules on a frequent basis (I don't have this issue but I hear it enough).
2. Lack of more granular options (such as team attack, specific items, etc.)
3. The ability to hard lock rules in exchange for longer waits
4. No taunting
5. Can't change character for a rematch
6. Can't choose random in quick play.

Arenas

1. Arenas do not allow more than one player per console (Smash 4 allowed up to 2 additional players).
2. Only one match can take place at a time meaning up to 6 people are just waiting.
3. It is very unclear whose stage will be chosen.
4. No way to communicate outside of a mobile app no one uses and no way for the host to take full control over things like stage/teams makes a very messy experience where something like Discord becomes almost mandatory.
5. Changing stage, character or song forces you to give up your place in line, discouraging any switching.
6. Even if someone does not specify a song on a stage, the song used the first time will be used each and every time that player's stage comes up until they re-select their stage.
7. Random stage does not mean random unless every single player in a match chooses random, it otherwise just forfeits choice. A forfeit option should be available in addition to random, not in place of it.
8. You cannot change the rules from within an arena.
9. Cannot add CPUs at all
10. Players can only have amiibos replace them, not add them in addition to themselves
11. Lag can be caused by spectators, seemingly because the game tries to keep them updated in the same way as the players. Other fighting games don't have this issue as they put them on a lower priority separated from the people playing.

It sucks for teams

1. There is only one mode for 2v2 with a local player, it has no options and all of your opponents must be 2 local players (randomly selected).
2. No option to take an online friend against random opponents for 2v2/FFA or to be a single player and get placed into 2v2 with another single player.

Let me know if you have anything to add, let's get a definitive list going. This is just off the top of my head.

 

[Noss92]

For arenas :

9. You can't put CPU players (you could do that both in Brawl and 4 lol)
10. You can let Amiibos play (nice!) but you can't play with them. It's you or the amiibo

 

[FartyParty]

INPUT LAG, this cannot be overstated. All the matchmaking fixes and options in the world do not mean a thing if input lag sticks around. The game is completely different online because of this and it's embarrassing.

Unless I'm sorely mistaken, I'm quite certain the input lag in Ultimate is the main reason for the inclusion of the hold buffer (which I hate). The normal input lag from the controllers is already worse than a lot of other games (averaging ~6 frames for pro controller and Joy Cons and ~5 frames for GameCube controller), and yes, those numbers are even worse online. The hold buffer then enables players to circumvent the input lag in many situations. No doubt, though, it would have been better to have a game with lower input lag to begin with and a better online system, but at least Nintendo gave us some means of working around the issue.

 

[Lyserdon]

My 2 cents:
- Cannot rematch someone in quick play with a different character.
- Can't choose random in quick play.
- Can't see entered names in quick play (would be less of an issue if there was any other way to communicate).

 

[Deleted member]

My 2 cents:
- Cannot rematch someone in quick play with a different character.
- Can't choose random in quick play.
- Can't see entered names in quick play (would be less of an issue if there was any other way to communicate).

I can sort of understand the last one, it's a precaution. I get it.

Unless I'm sorely mistaken, I'm quite certain the input lag in Ultimate is the main reason for the inclusion of the hold buffer (which I hate). The normal input lag from the controllers is already worse than a lot of other games (averaging ~6 frames for pro controller and Joy Cons and ~5 frames for GameCube controller), and yes, those numbers are even worse online. The hold buffer then enables players to circumvent the input lag in many situations. No doubt, though, it would have been better to have a game with lower input lag to begin with and a better online system, but at least Nintendo gave us some means of working around the issue.

I'm not 100% sure but buffer+lag is still a vastly different game than double that lag + buffer so the point stands.

 

[VodkaHaze]

One other issue to add for arenas:

• Lag can be caused by spectators, since the game is also trying to keep up with their connection as well. So if you have two players with solid connection, yet the spectators have a bad connection, the game will lag.

 

[Xquirtle]

I would add how completely ridiculous the GSP system is, in place of a normal 'league' based system that actually has a top 100 leader board or something. I think GSP has been one of the most damaging things to ultimate (lets be honest, its basically a dead game now). It could have been something interesting that gives players a goal to work towards. Something like LoL, sc2, you name it. Instead, its this arbitrary number that just pisses people off when it jumps around and is hard to understand. The only goal is elite smash, but it has zero tiers to work through before that.

 

[Deleted member]

I would add how completely ridiculous the GSP system is, in place of a normal 'league' based system that actually has a top 100 leader board or something. I think GSP has been one of the most damaging things to ultimate (lets be honest, its basically a dead game now). It could have been something interesting that gives players a goal to work towards. Something like LoL, sc2, you name it. Instead, its this arbitrary number that just pisses people off when it jumps around and is hard to understand. The only goal is elite smash, but it has zero tiers to work through before that.

While I agree it's a little muddled, I've seen arguments for it and against it. It doesn't hamper your ability to play the game. I'm trying to keep the list more or less objective.

 

[J.I.L]

While I agree it's a little muddled, I've seen arguments for it and against it. It doesn't hamper your ability to play the game. I'm trying to keep the list more or less objective.

What arguments are for gsp? What, people saying they consistently play people their skill level? That’s about it. McSquirrtle is right, the gsp system is a complete waist of trash and a terrible ranking system. Ranked play should be based solely on win percentage, not on an arbitrary number programmed by some losers in closed doors. My system would have 4 ranks. Green level, yellow level, orange level, red level.
Green level - win%: 0-40
Yellow level - win%: 40-60
Orange level - win%:60-80
Red level - win%:80-100
There’d be no segregation based on skill level, everyone who plays on ranked mode are fair game, some someone like nairo could face against a noob. Doesn’t matter. That’s a more definitive ranked system then gsp. Then after every week, I’ll update the top 100 players in the world for online... That’ll largely be based on win record and you need at least 100 games played to qualify. This all leads up to tourney play at the end of each month where your seed in tourney depends on your ranked play results. My mouth waters at how awesome my system would be.

 

[Brother AJ]

Js, you can just make the max amount of people in an Arena lower or even just you and 1 opponent. That will help with some of the issues you described.

 

[Xquirtle]

While I agree it's a little muddled, I've seen arguments for it and against it. It doesn't hamper your ability to play the game. I'm trying to keep the list more or less objective.

I can understand where you're coming from, but i think the same thing applies to the rest of your list (which i fully agree with). Its basically a list of subjective "wants" that are just so damn obvious that they are objectively true points. I'd contend that GSP is such a horrific design, that it also fits into that category as a no brainer. At the very least, GSP just pisses most people off, and we would be better off not seeing it at all lol. If theyre going to show us a rating, at least make it make sense.

 

[Deleted member]

What arguments are for gsp? What, people saying they consistently play people their skill level? That’s about it. McSquirrtle is right, the gsp system is a complete waist of trash and a terrible ranking system. Ranked play should be based solely on win percentage, not on an arbitrary number programmed by some losers in closed doors. My system would have 4 ranks. Green level, yellow level, orange level, red level.
Green level - win%: 0-40
Yellow level - win%: 40-60
Orange level - win%:60-80
Red level - win%:80-100
There’d be no segregation based on skill level, everyone who plays on ranked mode are fair game, some someone like nairo could face against a noob. Doesn’t matter. That’s a more definitive ranked system then gsp. Then after every week, I’ll update the top 100 players in the world for online... That’ll largely be based on win record and you need at least 100 games played to qualify. This all leads up to tourney play at the end of each month where your seed in tourney depends on your ranked play results. My mouth waters at how awesome my system would be.

Unlike the other items on the list, this one is more "I don't like the way they did ranked" as opposed to "a feature is missing". There's a perfectly legit reason why the system is the way it is. Your system sounds great but it's a well documented philosophy of Sakurai to make the ranking less of a focus and more about punching up then punching down. Basically, he wants people to be able to play it and like the big number rather than what other fighters do.

tl;dr: "Wow I'm better than 3-4 million people!" is more positive than "well I guess I'm ranked 5 millionth in the world" and while I can understand why the community dislikes it, it's not a huge negative like the others or something that cuts an option. You can still play ranked, I don't agree it's a fit for this list.

I can understand where you're coming from, but i think the same thing applies to the rest of your list (which i fully agree with). Its basically a list of subjective "wants" that are just so damn obvious that they are objectively true points. I'd contend that GSP is such a horrific design, that it also fits into that category as a no brainer. At the very least, GSP just pisses most people off, and we would be better off not seeing it at all lol. If theyre going to show us a rating, at least make it make sense.

It doesn't, the rest of it is all options that should be in the game. Things that bar you from doing certain things online that you really should be able to do or make a mode unweildy to use. Not liking GSP is fine, I'm not the biggest fan but I don't think it's a good fit for the list. Not liking how rank is tallied is more of a personal hangup than one of these things that cuts options, makes it difficult to use or limits playability.

 

[J.I.L]

Unlike the other items on the list, this one is more "I don't like the way they did ranked" as opposed to "a feature is missing". There's a perfectly legit reason why the system is the way it is. Your system sounds great but it's a well documented philosophy of Sakurai to make the ranking less of a focus and more about punching up then punching down. Basically, he wants people to be able to play it and like the big number rather than what other fighters do.

tl;dr: "Wow I'm better than 3-4 million people!" is more positive than "well I guess I'm ranked 5 millionth in the world" and while I can understand why the community dislikes it, it's not a huge negative like the others or something that cuts an option. You can still play ranked, I don't agree it's a fit for this list.

It doesn't, the rest of it is all options that should be in the game. Things that bar you from doing certain things online that you really should be able to do or make a mode unweildy to use. Not liking GSP is fine, I'm not the biggest fan but I don't think it's a good fit for the list. Not liking how rank is tallied is more of a personal hangup than one of these things that cuts options, makes it difficult to use or limits playability.

All you said is why smash online sucks, not “what online is missing”. Honestly surprised the mods didn’t throw this into the bigger ultimate online rant thread.

 

[Deleted member]

Yeah, you got me on the specific wording of the title, it's definitely more for the attention grabbing than the accuracy. I guess if I wanted to give a reason that keeps with the title. GSP doesn't "suck" like the lack of those options. It just isn't what you'd like. I'm sure many people actually enjoy the lack of pressure while still having some loose number, unlike the others it reads as more a matter of perspective.

 

[Mental Surge]

Uhhh if you don't pick your control setup name and character every single time you want to do background matchmaking it will randomly reset your controls and nothing else.

I get that Nintendo is incompetent and that the online in this game is terrible but.. really? They can't even figure THIS out? If I don't manually pick my control setup every single time I want to do this mode it doesnt save it. What makes no sense is that it still has the control setup name selected but the controls are reset to default. So apparently it can remember what character I want to play and the control setup I want to use but it can't remember what the control setup was for that name unless I actively pick it every time. Brilliant. It's annoying enough that it barely ever remembers your skin but your ****ing controls? How did Nintendo **** up the basics in this game so badly? It doesnt even save your skin for your profile in smash mode ffs.

 

[Sucumbio]

@OP if you play nice and take the word sucks outta the title I won't consider this unoriginal because unlike past versions this one has traction and purpose.

The complaint thread is finally quiet for once whereas this is intelligently gathered data.

Oh snap

 

[Xquirtle]

@OP if you play nice and take the word sucks outta the title I won't consider this unoriginal because unlike past versions this one has traction and purpose.

The complaint thread is finally quiet for once whereas this is intelligently gathered data.

Oh snap

Probably because I haven't been posting much lately, to keep the back and forth with Jill going in the complaint thread

 

[J.I.L]

Probably because I haven't been posting much lately, to keep the back and forth with Jill going in the complaint thread

I haven’t been posting on that thread, either. That thread is probably going to stay silent till someone changes the atrocious online system. That thread has literally covered everything this thread will, hence my general lack of interest in this thread as well.

 

[Xquirtle]

I haven’t been posting on that thread, either. That thread is probably going to stay silent till someone changes the atrocious online system. That thread has literally covered everything this thread will, hence my general lack of interest in this thread as well.

Yeah, we're headed right back to smash 4 level of interest in the game, until DLC comes out again. I was hoping that ultimate would be a break out for modern smash, and it was right at first, but the online just drove everybody but the long term committed players away, so we're quickly returning to relative inactivity. Oh well. Threads will go silent since we aren't adding new players that need to get their complaining out.

 

[J.I.L]

Yeah, we're headed right back to smash 4 level of interest in the game, until DLC comes out again. I was hoping that ultimate would be a break out for modern smash, and it was right at first, but the online just drove everybody but the long term committed players away, so we're quickly returning to relative inactivity. Oh well. Threads will go silent since we aren't adding new players that need to get their complaining out.

I think Sakurai is not the type of smash fan we are. Sakurai is the type of old school causal smash fan where he just likes playing characters from a series or game that I know. If you look in the most active forums, it’s just people who talk about what characters should be in the game or excited that this character is in the game. Some of these people don’t even have an online account. Those are the type of people Sakurai probably is and the type of people Sakurai targets. Us competitive smash players who balanced roster and solid competitive online features are an annoying afterthought for Sakurai. In japan, they literally play with items and jank stages for tournaments. At least in zeros story. So yeah, though I’m sure if you asked Japanese people, they’d agree this online system needs revamp.

 

[Rran]

My biggest hangup is definitely not being able to swap characters after a match: it leaves me choosing the same characters over and over again, and in a game w/ a roster as big as it is, that's unfortunate.

And man, I wish Team Battles had a separate ranking system or just simply not factor into GSP. That feeling when you're really synergizing w/ a particular character, and you're about to enter them into Elite Smash... and oops! Team Battle time! Totally throws off my momentum.
Or maybe if they could somehow implement a system where, if you're playing a match that doesn't follow your recommended rule set, then your GSP won't take a hit. I dunno, maybe this wouldn't irritate me so much if it didn't happen so often heh...

So yeah, those are my biggest gripes. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy going online. It's just that I know things could be so much better. Maybe it's just the expectations set by having to pay for online now, but I was really anticipating this game's online to be a relative homerun for Nintendo (or at least a triple... maybe double base hit rather than the single we got).

 

[Xquirtle]

I think Sakurai is not the type of smash fan we are. Sakurai is the type of old school causal smash fan where he just likes playing characters from a series or game that I know. If you look in the most active forums, it’s just people who talk about what characters should be in the game or excited that this character is in the game. Some of these people don’t even have an online account. Those are the type of people Sakurai probably is and the type of people Sakurai targets. Us competitive smash players who balanced roster and solid competitive online features are an annoying afterthought for Sakurai. In japan, they literally play with items and jank stages for tournaments. At least in zeros story. So yeah, though I’m sure if you asked Japanese people, they’d agree this online system needs revamp.

Yeah who knows. nintendo has basically fallen from an industry giant into a novelty item producer with 4 or 5 good games per system. It is all their family oriented ideology that has resulted in their fall from grace, and we see that again here with smash online being soft. Other than a handful of extremely dedicated smash players, who owns a nintendo system as their only gaming unit? Its been a side show since the Wii, with the switch being a somewhat unexpected revival. But ultimate is basically a dead game in spite of selling 14 million copies somehow. Made them all cocky that they sold a bunch of copies, even though basically everybody with a switch was going to buy it almost no matter what, since the switch only gets like 2 games a year.

 

[GooberGaming]

Hello Smashers,

For this post, I wanted to outline a few ways Nintendo and the Devs can help improve the overall Quickplay experience. Below I’ve separated this wall of text into a handful of sections, Latency and Lag, Preferred Settings, GSP and Elite Smash.

I’ve added a TL;DR section at the bottom of the post for those who would rather read a summary. Also, ultimately I’m trying to be as constructive as possible and at the end of the day IF the community comes together and provides constructive criticism and continues to make Nintendo aware of the issues via social media (Twitter, Reddit, YouTube), there’s a possibility that they will make a change to Smash’s online and I'm not talking about "Just updating the netcode". Just look at what happened with Mario Maker 2 and the communities out cry about the dev’s initially not allowing friends to play together online….

*I also posted this on Reddit, feel free to access the reddit post and comment their https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/cje6ju/how_nintendo_can_improve_online_while_updating/

Latency and Lag
I think the community agrees, that lag and latency is an issue. For a reference, when I say lag, I’m referring to those little screen freezes that occur during a match due to a player using wifi, and when I say latency... I’m referring to the amount of time it takes for a character to perform an action after pressing a button.
With Nintendo’s push in creating a mode that has it’s own ranking system, it’s really upsetting and frustrating that they didn’t ensure that players would have a quality experience to be able to play in an online environment that would feel the same as playing offline. At times, it honestly feels like my character is swimming…
Due to latency issues characters actions come out later then expected which results in misspaced moves, empty short hops when a player intended to throughout an aerial. mis-inputs and shields not coming out in time. Because of this, the poor connection quality rewards players to throw out unsafe moves like Ganon’s and Falcons down b’s, Charizards Flare Blitz and Squitles Shell spinny attack of doom, and random smash attacks in neutral because shields and defensive spacing moves come out later then they should and actively punishing those moves end lag is pointless. During a game against someone who abuses high latency matches, pay attention to how often they repeat the moves repeatedly. Due to lag unsafe moves will often connect and go unpunished making players think they’re unpunishable and will repeatable use those moves repeatedly.
With lag that causes screen freezes because of players who use WIFI and in the future players who play using a switch lite cause and will cause a huge amount of issues and ruin a lot of games for players who use a cable connection to play online. The screen freezes will always interrupt combos, recoveries and basic movement.
All in all, Nintendo can resolve these issues with some additional settings in the preferred settings.

1. Add a setting to filter out players who use WIFI for the players who use a cable connection to play online.
2. Add a Region Lock setting to allow players to be matched up against other players who are close by. I.e. I live in Toronto Canada; This setting can be used to only match me against players within Ontario. This setting will help reduce the potential of playing games with high latency because a connection versus someone who lives in Toronto will always be 100% better versus someone playing in the southern states/Mexico/Western Canada just due to the distance between players. Hence why companies like Blizzard have data centers close by for players to connect to AND servers dedicated to players from the EU, NA, Australia and etc..
3. Allow players to view another players connection quality and allow them to leave a match before it starts. This can help players avoid laggy matches and lose rank because of them.

Preferred Settings
Preferred settings…. I must commend Nintendo for coming up with this idea to allow players to pick and choose what they want to play. BUT in practice, these settings contribute to Ultimate’s online problems.
Because of customizable the settings are, there are a minority group of players who take advantage of this and use strange settings to cheese rank. I.e. 1 stock 3 min matches with all S Flags. On top of that, even though my settings are setting to 7 min, 3 stock, no items and FD/Battlefield, I still end up being sucked into 4 man free 4 alls, items games, and weird cheese settings. Because this, it makes climbing the GSP later so much harder and can a players experience.
Nintendo can resolve these issues by doing the following:

1. Limit the amount of settings.

a. Time always = 7mins
b. Rules = Time and Stock
c. Stage = All with Hazards and FD/Battlefield
d. Items = On and Off
i. Add a toggle for Final Smash meter, Smashball or both
A simpler solution to fixing these settings is to limit the number of customizations and make it so players will ALWAYS be matched with another player with the same settings. Currently right now there just TOO many options which may cause longer que times, if Nintendo made it so players get what their preferred settings are (Which is probably the reason why they haven’t made the change). The devs should leave the heavy custom games to the Battle Arenas.



GSP and Elite Smash
So… I’m on a positive note… GSP and Elite Smash are good step in the right direction. The ranking system and Elite Smash allow a player to track and feel like their improving as they rank up! This is something that makes me want to continue to play Quickplay because it FEELS soooooo good to finally reach Elite Smash with a character. Sadly… there are issues with this system.
To start off due to the way the preferred settings work and how poor the online modes connection quality is causes GSP and Elite Smash to be kind of … pointless. Players can easily cheese rank by using weird settings to tip the scales in their favor along with abusing the poor connection quality to rank up. Hence why you see lots of Ganon’s, DeDeDe’s (Not all Ganon’s and DeDeDe’s do this, actual mains of these characters are monsters!) and players who clearly are not the greatest but abuse latency and their WIFI to rank up!
Outside of players abusing the system, Elite Smash is sort of… pointless. Not only do the players who cheese the system gate actual good players from Elite Smash, once a player reaches Elite with a Character, they can simply not play that character anymore in Quickplay and that character will retain its rank. On top of that, IF a player has a high roster GSP, they can play a character that they haven’t touch and win a couple matches and get into Elite Smash. I did this with Samus and I haven’t played her in a few months and I’m still in Elite Smash with her… NOW because of how bad the connection quality and opening yourself to getting into a match that’s not your preferred settings why WOULD players risk losing GSP by playing QP once they get into Elite Smash? It’s honestly a ****ting situation because players can be easily be cheated out of their rank because another player refuses to use anything but a WIFI connection or using a weird setting OR you playing in an item game/in a 1v1 mode with no items.
Lastly, the overall Matchmaking can be a little iffy. At times it does match me up against similar ranked players, but I’ve experienced games where my Marth who is at 45 Million GSP is matched up against someone in Elite Smash which if I lose, I then lose a lot of GSP. When this happens it’s a HUGE moral loss and its makes climbing frustrating.
Overall Nintendo can improve GSP and MMR by doing the following:

1. Improve the connection quality by adding settings to the preferred settings to allow players to filter WIFI players out of their que and region lock themselves to improve the latency in their matches
2. Allow players to be matched with other players using the SAME preferred settings
3. If the connection quality for improves, GSP for characters should degrade not increase. Players shouldn’t be able to sit in Elite Smash and not have to continuously play to maintain rank.

a. Add seasonal rankings. Reset the ladder when a season is over.
b. LEADERBOARDS
c. Seasonal rewards by being in Elite Smash by the end of a season. I.e. Elite Character skins!!
4. Ensure that the matches are of two players with similar GSP character rank. This will avoid someone with 40 million GSP be matched up against someone in an Elite Smash with over 50 Million GSP.
a. Ignore Roster GSP when matching players, ONLY use character GSP. I believe the roster GSP is the cause for most mismatched games.



TL;DR Section:
Latency and Lag – Connection quality is poor and promotes degenerate playstyles and adds a barrier to players with cable connections. Solution: Add settings in the Preferred setting to filter out WIFI players and Region lock your que
Preferred Settings – Too many options that allows players to cheese rank. Solution: Limit settings and ONLY matches players with the same settings. Leave the custom matches to Battle Arena’s
GSP and Elite Smash – Due to connection quality and Preferred setting issues GSP and Elite Smash do not properly represent a player’s skill level and gate good players from rightfully entering Elite Smash. GSP often matches players with a huge GSP gap causing mismatches and punishing low level players. GSP does not degrade allow players to enter Elite Smash and maintain their rank without playing. Solution: Improve connection quality, degrade rankings, use a season system and provide rewards to players who ended a season in Elite Smash, ADD LEADERBOARDS!

 

[Leoinu]

Lag is never gona get better simply because of peer 2 peer connections. However the idea to set filters for “bar strength” is a good idea. As for wifi, well there really isnt a way to discern that. Its getting an ip address and other technicals for connection, it doesnt care what kind of connection it is.

 

[GooberGaming]

Lag is never gona get better simply because of peer 2 peer connections. However the idea to set filters for “bar strength” is a good idea. As for wifi, well there really isnt a way to discern that. Its getting an ip address and other technicals for connection, it doesnt care what kind of connection it is.

Yea, there's a possible technical limitation to the dev's finding a way to add a "WIFI" FIlter, I figured if a switch can indicate if it's connected via wifi or cable there might be a way for the Smash Ultimate dev's to identify a players type of connection. Hell, they actually gate players with poor connections already, but not allowing them to connect online due to "Unstable Connection" and will prompt those players with a message.

 

[Sucumbio]

Now that the complaint thread is closed let's use this discussion to talk about improvements to the game's online mode.

 

[TheDuke54]

So I don't know if this was listed or not. I checked, but I could had missed it. This is for quickplay and it's something I brought up on the other thread.

QP: When in the lobby (the void when waiting for the match to commence) the window to leave is so short that you're often stuck waiting for the match to begin even if you don't want to. Smash4 let you leave so long as the player tag's didn't have the 'ready' sign above them.

(Unless you don't mind a warning/penalty for leaving through force. Which can get annoying if you requested something like team or ffa and there's only one other person besides you and the match won't start until it finds two others or just gives up three minutes later to make it a 1v1) This has honestly been my biggest issue on smash online and qp.


I don't know if it was here or on another forum, but before Smash Ultimate was a thing we were discussing ways to make things better for online. And I suggested a dot above everyone's tag who joined your match. It would be color coded green, yellow, and red. Green meaning their connection was good and red meaning abort or suck it up and have a lagfest. It's stuff like this that is an easy fix without having to address online lag as a whole.

 

[DeDeDIke]

Wouldn't it be awesome if we could get our amiibos onto quickplay? Though I wonder how that would work...Now I haven't played Smash 4 (since I didn't have the game), but I've heard from plenty of people that there was a for fun mode and a for glory mode. I guess the "for fun" mode would be online arenas and tournies, while for glory would be quickplay? Anyways, I'd like to see separate channels for FFAs, team battles, and 1 on 1s on quickplay. And maybe make the GSP system work differently for those channels. That way, those who want 1 v 1 don't have to worry about getting team battles and FFAs and vice versa. I would appreciate it if these channels would pair you up with ppl who have good connections. I agree with Duke's suggestion; make dots appear over the player's tag; green for excellent connection, yellow for mediocre connection, and red for bad connection. That way we can tell who the lagger will be.

 

[lucasla]

Lag is never gona get better simply because of peer 2 peer connections. However the idea to set filters for “bar strength” is a good idea. As for wifi, well there really isnt a way to discern that. Its getting an ip address and other technicals for connection, it doesnt care what kind of connection it is.

It's absurd that they dont provide dedicated servers for this game, it's their bigger online franchise.

I also dont accept the argument that Smash is a fighting game and because of that it dont need dedicated servers. Yes it needs, just look to how the game runs today. It wouldnt need if it wasnt a lag festival, but it is a lag festival, so it needs dedicated servers, pretty simple logic.

Also, fighting games are usually only 2 player games, while Smash can be 4 player, and everybody waiting everybody's response in the structure they created already proved to be a failure. The game itself is a proof that this p2p method is a failure, and it was already a proof since Brawl and Smash4, with Ultimate being just a repetition of an well known error on the online department.

Brawlhalla, a free indie game of a small company, that has the same style of game of Smash, has dedicated servers, and the game is fluid as water, so there's no way to accept the excuse that this kind of game would not run better with dedicated servers. I know it is much more simple than Smash, but Smash is a giant series.

Let's just compare.. you can play Brawlhalla in 4 player matches with an organized ranked competitive scenario and options. You can just enter on eShop and download the game for free, you pay only if you want to access everything in the game.

Smash is a $60 game, +$25 of all character DLCs ($30 if you buy them separetelly), +$20 that you pay for the Nintendo Switch online service.
I pay $105 to play Smash with all character DLCs, and the online is terrible. Then, I open Brawlhalla that I just download for free, and I got impressed by how smooth is the online experience.

The problem is that I dont like Brawlhalla, but I love Smash. And because of that, and because I pay a lot for Smash, I envy Brawlhalla players, I feel that Nintendo and Smash Developers (Bandai Namco, Sora Ltd) - I Dont know who should I blame, probably everyone - treat the online like trash, and by doing this, it treats me like trash, because I like to play the game online.

There were already some moments that I invited friends to play Smash in my house, we tried to play Smash online - 2 player team game - online, and it was so bad, that he asked me "why you pay for that? are you stupid? you cant even play that way", and I had nothing to respond. Why I pay for that, really? I really feel stupid. We needed to play Mario Kart 8 and other games, after play only 1v1 online matches, that run a lot better than 2v2 of FFA that have 4 players, because looks like that ammount of lag is exponential to the ammount of people in the match, so 1v1 is fine (most of the time, but also not always), and 4 player is unplayable in my region. Even that way I had to listen things like "dude, you preffer to play 1v1, fine, but you cant fully enjoy the game because they dont provide servers, you have these many modes that you cant play because of lag that is not your fault? and this game is expensive!"

I also dont accept the argument that Smash is much more complex to Brawlhalla, and even if they implement dedicated servers, the ammount of data of Smash in comparison to Brawlhalla will not allow it to be a fluid experience. This is bull****, people saying that are just defending Nintendo and Smash developers blindly.

Some people are assuming things without really knowing anything about the data of the game. Also, as much as I like Smash, it is not the most complex online game in the world. We live in a world where now we have 100 people playing an online game at the same time. We have shooters with 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20, 100 players online - Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, PUBG, Counter Strike, . These are competitive games, where a bullet in the right time make the difference, and some people try to convince themselves that Smash, a 4 player game (at maximum) is super intensive and will not work with dedicated servers because it requires total velocity of data.. guess what? It is already not working with p2p! what these people are defending?

Is Smash so special, that eeevvverrry server based online game in the world ever done works only because they are not intensive enough, but Smash is so special, that it cant have dedicated servers? I'm unable to believe that, I believe in lazyness, lack of investiment, and that they just dont care. It is just not possible that I play Overwatch, Rainbow Six, Counter Strike, ANY GAME IN THE WORLD with great connection (even in WiFi on my PC in another room), with no problem at all, but I plug Smash, a game that has one simple scenario, most of them being a simple geometric structure, and 4 players, even with a LAN adapter, and it is a lag festival in games with more than 2 players and in many times with 2 players only too.

Every server based game that is running perfectly fine, but Smash is P2P and is laggy, but they are right in doing it P2P. Right...
Even if the internet of people of world are the problem, you cant build a game in these conditions requiring people to have NASA/Japan internet quality, cause it's predictable that most people will have problems. The server based games provides servers knowing that and finding a way to the players dont suffer from this, but Smash ignores the things it could do to minimize the connection problems. It's like an engineer that decided to make a building without a good foundation, knowing the terrain is muddy, and after people occupy it, it will be totally unstable. I dont have problem in my internet, I play everything fine, but because other people may have poor connections, or they are far, or connection is unstable, I have incredible lag. Do I blame these people? No, I blame Smash infrastructure. Probable these people are not having connection problems in any other games too, and only Smash (and other nintendo games like Mario Maker 2 online) is bad for them too, and the lack of server controls make everything goes down.

 

[Sucumbio]

It's absurd that they dont provide dedicated servers for this game, it's their bigger online franchise.

I also dont accept the argument that Smash is a fighting game and because of that it dont need dedicated servers. Yes it needs, just look to how the game runs today. It wouldnt need if it wasnt a lag festival, but it is a lag festival, so it needs dedicated servers, pretty simple logic.

Also, fighting games are usually only 2 player games, while Smash can be 4 player, and everybody waiting everybody's response in the structure they created already proved to be a failure. The game itself is a proof that this p2p method is a failure, and it was already a proof since Brawl and Smash4, with Ultimate being just a repetition of an well known error on the online department.

Brawlhalla, a free indie game of a small company, that has the same style of game of Smash, has dedicated servers, and the game is fluid as water, so there's no way to accept the excuse that this kind of game would not run better with dedicated servers. I know it is much more simple than Smash, but Smash is a giant series.

Let's just compare.. you can play Brawlhalla in 4 player matches with an organized ranked competitive scenario and options. You can just enter on eShop and download the game for free, you pay only if you want to access everything in the game.

Smash is a $60 game, +$25 of all character DLCs ($30 if you buy them separetelly), +$20 that you pay for the Nintendo Switch online service.
I pay $105 to play Smash with all character DLCs, and the online is terrible. Then, I open Brawlhalla that I just download for free, and I got impressed by how smooth is the online experience.

The problem is that I dont like Brawlhalla, but I love Smash. And because of that, and because I pay a lot for Smash, I envy Brawlhalla players, I feel that Nintendo and Smash Developers (Bandai Namco, Sora Ltd) - I Dont know who should I blame, probably everyone - treat the online like trash, and by doing this, it treats me like trash, because I like to play the game online.

There were already some moments that I invited friends to play Smash in my house, we tried to play Smash online - 2 player team game - online, and it was so bad, that he asked me "why you pay for that? are you stupid? you cant even play that way", and I had nothing to respond. Why I pay for that, really? I really feel stupid. We needed to play Mario Kart 8 and other games, after play only 1v1 online matches, that run a lot better than 2v2 of FFA that have 4 players, because looks like that ammount of lag is exponential to the ammount of people in the match, so 1v1 is fine (most of the time, but also not always), and 4 player is unplayable in my region. Even that way I had to listen things like "dude, you preffer to play 1v1, fine, but you cant fully enjoy the game because they dont provide servers, you have these many modes that you cant play because of lag that is not your fault? and this game is expensive!"

I also dont accept the argument that Smash is much more complex to Brawlhalla, and even if they implement dedicated servers, the ammount of data of Smash in comparison to Brawlhalla will not allow it to be a fluid experience. This is bull****, people saying that are just defending Nintendo and Smash developers blindly.

Some people are assuming things without really knowing anything about the data of the game. Also, as much as I like Smash, it is not the most complex online game in the world. We live in a world where now we have 100 people playing an online game at the same time. We have shooters with 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20, 100 players online - Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, PUBG, Counter Strike, . These are competitive games, where a bullet in the right time make the difference, and some people try to convince themselves that Smash, a 4 player game (at maximum) is super intensive and will not work with dedicated servers because it requires total velocity of data.. guess what? It is already not working with p2p! what these people are defending?

Is Smash so special, that eeevvverrry server based online game in the world ever done works only because they are not intensive enough, but Smash is so special, that it cant have dedicated servers? I'm unable to believe that, I believe in lazyness, lack of investiment, and that they just dont care. It is just not possible that I play Overwatch, Rainbow Six, Counter Strike, ANY GAME IN THE WORLD with great connection (even in WiFi on my PC in another room), with no problem at all, but I plug Smash, a game that has one simple scenario, most of them being a simple geometric structure, and 4 players, even with a LAN adapter, and it is a lag festival in games with more than 2 players and in many times with 2 players only too.

Every server based game that is running perfectly fine, but Smash is P2P and is laggy, but they are right in doing it P2P. Right...
Even if the internet of people of world are the problem, you cant build a game in these conditions requiring people to have NASA/Japan internet quality, cause it's predictable that most people will have problems. The server based games provides servers knowing that and finding a way to the players dont suffer from this, but Smash ignores the things it could do to minimize the connection problems. It's like an engineer that decided to make a building without a good foundation, knowing the terrain is muddy, and after people occupy it, it will be totally unstable. I dont have problem in my internet, I play everything fine, but because other people may have poor connections, or they are far, or connection is unstable, I have incredible lag. Do I blame these people? No, I blame Smash infrastructure. Probable these people are not having connection problems in any other games too, and only Smash (and other nintendo games like Mario Maker 2 online) is bad for them too, and the lack of server controls make everything goes down.

Here's an interesting discussion on why dedicated servers would actually be worse

https://gonintendo.com/stories/3284...t-up-in-lag-controversy-during-the-smash-bros

Thing is too Brawlhalla has like maybe a few hundred people playing it at once versus millions. Yes they paid for dedicated server but to upscale it to the size necessary for Smash you'd need 200 thousand servers lol. Not to mention you still have to connect TO the server which introduces lag issues as well.

Most 1v1 fighting games rely on p2p because it's way more efficient. You have a matchmaking server that handles only matchmaking and the console does the heavy lifting. Brawlhalla would run terribly if it had even half the players smash does. Servers are perfect for fps, mmorpgs, etc. They're crap for 1v1 fighting.

And then of course smash has up to 4 players... So it is gonna be worse than true 1v1 fighters by default.

 

[J.I.L]

It's absurd that they dont provide dedicated servers for this game, it's their bigger online franchise.

I also dont accept the argument that Smash is a fighting game and because of that it dont need dedicated servers. Yes it needs, just look to how the game runs today. It wouldnt need if it wasnt a lag festival, but it is a lag festival, so it needs dedicated servers, pretty simple logic.

Also, fighting games are usually only 2 player games, while Smash can be 4 player, and everybody waiting everybody's response in the structure they created already proved to be a failure. The game itself is a proof that this p2p method is a failure, and it was already a proof since Brawl and Smash4, with Ultimate being just a repetition of an well known error on the online department.

Brawlhalla, a free indie game of a small company, that has the same style of game of Smash, has dedicated servers, and the game is fluid as water, so there's no way to accept the excuse that this kind of game would not run better with dedicated servers. I know it is much more simple than Smash, but Smash is a giant series.

Let's just compare.. you can play Brawlhalla in 4 player matches with an organized ranked competitive scenario and options. You can just enter on eShop and download the game for free, you pay only if you want to access everything in the game.

Smash is a $60 game, +$25 of all character DLCs ($30 if you buy them separetelly), +$20 that you pay for the Nintendo Switch online service.
I pay $105 to play Smash with all character DLCs, and the online is terrible. Then, I open Brawlhalla that I just download for free, and I got impressed by how smooth is the online experience.

The problem is that I dont like Brawlhalla, but I love Smash. And because of that, and because I pay a lot for Smash, I envy Brawlhalla players, I feel that Nintendo and Smash Developers (Bandai Namco, Sora Ltd) - I Dont know who should I blame, probably everyone - treat the online like trash, and by doing this, it treats me like trash, because I like to play the game online.

There were already some moments that I invited friends to play Smash in my house, we tried to play Smash online - 2 player team game - online, and it was so bad, that he asked me "why you pay for that? are you stupid? you cant even play that way", and I had nothing to respond. Why I pay for that, really? I really feel stupid. We needed to play Mario Kart 8 and other games, after play only 1v1 online matches, that run a lot better than 2v2 of FFA that have 4 players, because looks like that ammount of lag is exponential to the ammount of people in the match, so 1v1 is fine (most of the time, but also not always), and 4 player is unplayable in my region. Even that way I had to listen things like "dude, you preffer to play 1v1, fine, but you cant fully enjoy the game because they dont provide servers, you have these many modes that you cant play because of lag that is not your fault? and this game is expensive!"

I also dont accept the argument that Smash is much more complex to Brawlhalla, and even if they implement dedicated servers, the ammount of data of Smash in comparison to Brawlhalla will not allow it to be a fluid experience. This is bull****, people saying that are just defending Nintendo and Smash developers blindly.

Some people are assuming things without really knowing anything about the data of the game. Also, as much as I like Smash, it is not the most complex online game in the world. We live in a world where now we have 100 people playing an online game at the same time. We have shooters with 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 20, 100 players online - Rainbow Six Siege, Overwatch, PUBG, Counter Strike, . These are competitive games, where a bullet in the right time make the difference, and some people try to convince themselves that Smash, a 4 player game (at maximum) is super intensive and will not work with dedicated servers because it requires total velocity of data.. guess what? It is already not working with p2p! what these people are defending?

Is Smash so special, that eeevvverrry server based online game in the world ever done works only because they are not intensive enough, but Smash is so special, that it cant have dedicated servers? I'm unable to believe that, I believe in lazyness, lack of investiment, and that they just dont care. It is just not possible that I play Overwatch, Rainbow Six, Counter Strike, ANY GAME IN THE WORLD with great connection (even in WiFi on my PC in another room), with no problem at all, but I plug Smash, a game that has one simple scenario, most of them being a simple geometric structure, and 4 players, even with a LAN adapter, and it is a lag festival in games with more than 2 players and in many times with 2 players only too.

Every server based game that is running perfectly fine, but Smash is P2P and is laggy, but they are right in doing it P2P. Right...
Even if the internet of people of world are the problem, you cant build a game in these conditions requiring people to have NASA/Japan internet quality, cause it's predictable that most people will have problems. The server based games provides servers knowing that and finding a way to the players dont suffer from this, but Smash ignores the things it could do to minimize the connection problems. It's like an engineer that decided to make a building without a good foundation, knowing the terrain is muddy, and after people occupy it, it will be totally unstable. I dont have problem in my internet, I play everything fine, but because other people may have poor connections, or they are far, or connection is unstable, I have incredible lag. Do I blame these people? No, I blame Smash infrastructure. Probable these people are not having connection problems in any other games too, and only Smash (and other nintendo games like Mario Maker 2 online) is bad for them too, and the lack of server controls make everything goes down.

Good heavens dude, relax. The online is garbage because what it offers and the lack it offers. Lag isn’t high on that list since its connection are pretty good. To me at least.

 

[lucasla]

Good heavens dude, relax. The online is garbage because what it offers and the lack it offers. Lag isn’t high on that list since its connection are pretty good. To me at least.

yes, to you.

 

[lucasla]

Here's an interesting discussion on why dedicated servers would actually be worse

Thing is too Brawlhalla has like maybe a few hundred people playing it at once versus millions. Yes they paid for dedicated server but to upscale it to the size necessary for Smash you'd need 200 thousand servers lol. Not to mention you still have to connect TO the server which introduces lag issues as well.

200.00 servers? Really? Where this number came from? This is just achism. Also, how other successful online games work? I hope you understand these servers are "virtual rooms", software in a much much smaller ammount of hardware, and not actual 200.000 pieces of hardware...

Other than that, the discussion on this page.. I already read it, and it is just people pretending Nintendo did everything it could for Smash, and the blame is on the players, and that they "believe" that servers would make things worse. I already responded all these points on my post.

Most 1v1 fighting games rely on p2p because it's way more efficient. You have a matchmaking server that handles only matchmaking and the console does the heavy lifting. Brawlhalla would run terribly if it had even half the players smash does. Servers are perfect for fps, mmorpgs, etc. They're crap for 1v1 fighting.

And then of course smash has up to 4 players... So it is gonna be worse than true 1v1 fighters by default.

I already responded this too. People are just defending it when the actual P2P is already a thing that dont work properly, specially for more than 2 players. If servers can make a worse experience for 1v1 matches, this kind of match could be handled by p2p while the rest of the game is server based. Or the game could entirely run perfectly fine being a server based game, cause people are just assumin that it will run worse because the information needs to reach the servers first.. like if it implies that the game would run in a worse way because of that.. servers would be around the world, not in japan.. if a server connects two very far players, information would be actually faster, and the clock of the game being controlled by the servers, would imply that the freezes that happens when you are playing wouldnt exist, only people that have lag would feel some lag, but the game must go on. You also are using MMORPGs as example to justify servers only to games that are not fast paced, when I also already gave a lot of examples of fast paced games, specially shooters.

 

[Sucumbio]

200.00 servers? Really? Where this number came from? This is just achism. Also, how other successful online games work? I hope you understand these servers are "virtual rooms", software in a much much smaller ammount of hardware, and not actual 200.000 pieces of hardware...

Other than that, the discussion on this page.. I already read it, and it is just people pretending Nintendo did everything it could for Smash, and the blame is on the players, and that they "believe" that servers would make things worse. I already responded all these points on my post.



I already responded this too. People are just defending it when the actual P2P is already a thing that dont work properly, specially for more than 2 players. If servers can make a worse experience for 1v1 matches, this kind of match could be handled by p2p while the rest of the game is server based. Or the game could entirely run perfectly fine being a server based game, cause people are just assumin that it will run worse because the information needs to reach the servers first.. like if it implies that the game would run in a worse way because of that.. servers would be around the world, not in japan.. if a server connects two very far players, information would be actually faster, and the clock of the game being controlled by the servers, would imply that the freezes that happens when you are playing wouldnt exist, only people that have lag would feel some lag, but the game must go on. You also are using MMORPGs as example to justify servers only to games that are not fast paced, when I also already gave a lot of examples of fast paced games, specially shooters.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSw..._source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body

This is another good analysis. It points out that p2p does not automatically mean more lag. Just as dedicated servers does not have to mean less lag. It's all about the net code... The portion of the game code that's behind the online experience. I will be the first to admit that smash's online code is obviously lacking. Lag has been a problem since Brawl and continues obviously to be an issue - for some. The point is that changing from p2p won't magically erase the issue! Better code will.

 

[lucasla]

https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSw..._source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body

This is another good analysis. It points out that p2p does not automatically mean more lag. Just as dedicated servers does not have to mean less lag. It's all about the net code... The portion of the game code that's behind the online experience. I will be the first to admit that smash's online code is obviously lacking. Lag has been a problem since Brawl and continues obviously to be an issue - for some. The point is that changing from p2p won't magically erase the issue! Better code will.

Of course that in all cases, a poor job will not save the game. But the evidences we have are: All actual server based games of any company are working without any problem. P2P Nintendo games with small ammount of players are running poorly (this applies to Smash Ultimate (and all previous iterations of the game), Mario Tennis Aces - 2 players in this case, and Mario Maker 2 (this simplistic 2D game has the same problems)).

 

[Noss92]

Time to update the list! Thanks to patch 6.0 the ruleset change inside an arena problem is no more. Finally! No more annoying closing / reopening arenas for just a tiny rule change

 

[Hedgehugs]

still can't go random in quickplay.
brb gonna cry.

but definitely glad we can change rules in arenas without remaking. a big step up.
also it's much easier to find friends arenas, tysm nintendo!

oh, and the chat system is nice (and funny). i like saying hello to peeps who join. cute.

my biggest complaint still stands that you can't see others peoples connections via bars or whatever... ugh.
but hey, it's improvement.

 

[Crazy Hand 2001]

Random stage does not mean random unless every single player in a match chooses random, it otherwise just forfeits choice. A forfeit option should be available in addition to random, not in place of it.

Anyone who picks random usually doesn’t have a preference as to what stage gets chosen, otherwise you would’ve chosen one.

If anything, people wanted this kind of random selection to be in Mario Kart Wii, instead of the game randomly picking a stage that no one else asked for.

 

[Smash Arena]

I think one major improvement to Quickplay would be to segregate players by their connection type. So WiFi players would only play with other WiFi players, and Wired players would only play with other Wired players.

In fact, this would probably improve other Nintendo Switch games like Splatoon 2, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and ARMS.

 

[TheZizz]

Sakurai forced items on everyone, for what they did to Basic Brawl (and For Fun, when they didn't get the hint). Just to remind everyone that if they prefer Melee they should go play that, instead of practicing MK AT's in between lynchings, for nothing. Sorry to those who had nothing to do with any of this, but "KARMA" is a ***** after all. If we learn respect, maybe we get something better next time.