Tier List Speculation

[Sardonyx]

The stuff you said for Roy is already getting changed.
I feel like the point of G & W is to be a weird character, granted that doesn't mean he can be a 3.0 character
And Peach is not fine, no Smash attack should be able to do over 45%. She's not even a power type character, why would she have such a damaging attack. Her D Smash does more damage than most of the power type characters smash attacks ,sure you can DI to avoid the other hits but it shouldn't do that much damage under any circumstances. I don't have much Ness, Wolf and ROB experience/knowledge

I still want my suggested change to dsmash, even though I'm a peach main.
Make the first hit do around 17-18 damage so that it still does a good amount of damage, KB compensated so it still hits as hard, then make the total damage of the attack around 33-35 if all hits connect.

 

[Soft Serve]

All you need to know about wolf is he's busted good but not fox so it's okay

 

[D e l t a]

And Peach is not fine, no Smash attack should be able to do over 45%. She's not even a power type character, why would she have such a damaging attack. Her D Smash does more damage than most of the power type characters smash attacks ,sure you can DI to avoid the other hits but it shouldn't do that much damage under any circumstances.

Oh boohoo, you can't be crouch cancel everything in PM, what a shame. It's part of the MU, just deal with it and bait out the Dsmash just like any other smash attack. You don't see us comaining about Marth's tipper Fsmash killing at 30% or Roy's sweetspot killing around 50-60% all the time

 

[Nausicaa]

Wolf, Mewtwo, Yoshi, Ness, Squirtle, and Lucas are all much less technically forgiving than Fox

All of that and you didn't mention Pikachu, the most difficult character to play in Melee by a significant gap, and he never even made the list for PM.
What is this wack game we call PM when Pika isn't on a list of hardest-to-play.

In PM, even Ganon has options.
Game is too wack.

 

[Frost | Odds]

All of that and you didn't mention Pikachu, the most difficult character to play in Melee by a significant gap, and he never even made the list for PM.
What is this wack game we call PM when Pika isn't on a list of hardest-to-play.

In PM, even Ganon has options.
Game is too wack.

Can't believe I forgot Pika. Editing him in, lmao

 

[foxygrandpa]

What's wrong with his dash dance? Not sure what issue you're addressing here.



His throws being the same is silly but allows DI mixups from side & up throws. Always hit the tech button to cover dthrow. The thing that's really dumb? Dtilt can kill characters as early as 85%. WTF?!?! Like why is that a thing?!



The only problem with Fair is being a free approach combined with magnet. It's fine as a combo option & somewhat slow to attack with, but it's largely disjointed and even if you go to CC it, Ness can just spam 50 Dtilts right after. I've tried countless times to counter Ness approaching with Fair and I just have to respect their space and counter their option after because it's that silly in design.
Dair isn't bad and sets up for kills just like Lucas & Falcon.
Dthrow is perfectly balanced atm. DI it forward and Ness can't do much to followup.



it's called being smart and counting his usages of SideB / UpB. He can only go left / right / up. Just read his movement and trap landings. He doesn't have good landing options outside of Nair, which is completely unsafe on shield, and Fair.
Not being able to juggle him isn't necessarily a vast part of the cast's gameplay. Plus, there's other characters that don't get juggled or have stall /landing options to stop juggles. If you're saying its bc Rob can juggle others that can't juggle him, all he has is Uair and sometimes upsmash / Utilt. All of which can be evaded / SDI'd away from

Only serious issue with fox is his potency in the neutral. Reducing his dash dance would remedy that pretty handily. People complain about his punish game which is admittedly extremely powerful, but fox's core design issue is that he can sort of elect when and where he wants to engage the opponent due to his speed and ability to force approaches and control space.
G&W you're probably correct. I don't think I have the proper knowledge with him to form a strong argument.
You're right, Ness' fair combined with DJC is a good combo tool, approach tool, and control's space well. It's not game breaking, just too omnipotent. His dair is just slightly too fast on startup imo,
ROB is problematic, buddy. Not a lot of people have played good ROB players, but the aforementioned issues are slightly degenerate and need to be addressed if he is to follow the fundamental risk reward ratio that's present in the other characters. He's not suddenly broken tier in this version, but i'm adamant that some questionable things about him were certainly overlooked.

The stuff you said for Roy is already getting changed.
I feel like the point of G & W is to be a weird character, granted that doesn't mean he can be a 3.0 character
And Peach is not fine, no Smash attack should be able to do over 45%. She's not even a power type character, why would she have such a damaging attack. Her D Smash does more damage than most of the power type characters smash attacks ,sure you can DI to avoid the other hits but it shouldn't do that much damage under any circumstances. I don't have much Ness, Wolf and ROB experience/knowledge

There aren't really such things as "power type" characters in this. The majority of the better characters are just extrmely well rounded. Her D Smash is absurd, but if you play a safe playstlyle in which you don't really throw out CCable attacks at unsafe distances or approach her from below a platform, it's not really unfair. If it's doing more than 30% consistently, then you need to check your DI and not CC as often.

 

[Ya Boy GP]

Yes, only Fox players need to deal with this phenomenon; it is clearly not, in fact, common to literally every character in the game.

You're quoting things out of context to try and make me look dumb right now. I also said "As Fox if you don't know the matchup, you're going to get bopped, since every other person in the world knows the fox matchup VERY well" literally the next sentence. Not every person knows every matchup in the game, but every person knows the fox matchup. I also went on later to say that sometimes I'll switch to a character like Lucas and do much better even though I'm better with Fox because we're on even playing grounds since neither of us have matchup knowledge.

Sarcasm aside, this is patently false. Wolf, Mewtwo, Yoshi, Ness, Squirtle, Pikachu, and Lucas are all much less technically forgiving than Fox - whom you can play very effectively with extraordinarily little mental effort, or physical effort beyond DD, nairshine, and usmash.

I do agree that he's not the most technically demanding, sorry about that, not sure what I was thinking. But Fox is WAY less forgiving than anyone else if you consider matchups across the board. If you get punished for missing tech skill as fox, it's going to hurt a lot more than if you missed tech skill with any other character on your list (sans maybe wolf) or any other character in the game (except for Falco as well since he's a similar weight/fall speed as Fox/wolf with a worse recovery). And I won't address the "you can play very effectively with extraordinarily little mental effort" because I'm pretty sure we all know that's just a dumb statement.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Worth mentioning that by nature of having the best tools, less effort is needed. Squirtle requires so much work to deal with cc, but fox can shine after landing without even breaking a sweat.


Its also way overstated how easy it is to punish fox. Character like ZSS, Falcon, Squirtle, Sheik and others rely on tech chases to get them to combo percents.

Also, what tech skill would they mess up? Dash dancing? Lasers? The only stuff that foxes actually use a lot that they could mess up
are perfect ledgedashes (Squirt and Sheik say hi), double shines (which aren't required to make fox amazing), and waveshines (which is decently tough, but so is f throw RHUS to kill a floatie...). I think the neutral is the hardest part of the game, so by nature of fox having the best one makes him a lot more fundamentally sound.

 

[Boiko]

Whoever said Ness has a free approach with fair, you're wrong.

Carry on.

 

[Frost | Odds]

You're quoting things out of context to try and make me look dumb right now. I also said "As Fox if you don't know the matchup, you're going to get bopped, since every other person in the world knows the fox matchup VERY well" literally the next sentence. Not every person knows every matchup in the game, but every person knows the fox matchup.

There's 2 reasons that most players know the Fox matchup.

1. Out of necessity: he's so broken that if you don't know the matchup, you automatically lose. Most PM characters can be adapted to fairly quickly over the course of a game, or can be camped out and have their interactions reduced while you figure them out. Neither is an option against fox.
2. Experience from Melee. And he's broken in that, too. :/

I also went on later to say that sometimes I'll switch to a character like Lucas and do much better even though I'm better with Fox because we're on even playing grounds since neither of us have matchup knowledge.

Melee players are infamously terrible at adapting to anything that isn't in their unimpeachably perfect game, yes.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

It is possible to tech chase on reaction (at least with Squirt), but it is so hard to do. Also, people keep saying PM favors in game adaptation (which would make it lean towards reads or partial option coverage, something Squirtle's not great at in comparison). Squirtle is hard to play because a lot of his options have stupid easy counterplay (like SDI out of up n, cc first hit dtilt at almost all percents, actually know what aqua jet is...).

*edit* I should clarify, I dont think Squirtle is hard to play just because he is bad. Its a combination of lots of counter options and guesses in neutral and precise timing to get things to work.

 

[AceGamer]

Only serious issue with fox is his potency in the neutral. Reducing his dash dance would remedy that pretty handily. People complain about his punish game which is admittedly extremely powerful, but fox's core design issue is that he can sort of elect when and where he wants to engage the opponent due to his speed and ability to force approaches and control space.
G&W you're probably correct. I don't think I have the proper knowledge with him to form a strong argument.
You're right, Ness' fair combined with DJC is a good combo tool, approach tool, and control's space well. It's not game breaking, just too omnipotent. His dair is just slightly too fast on startup imo,
ROB is problematic, buddy. Not a lot of people have played good ROB players, but the aforementioned issues are slightly degenerate and need to be addressed if he is to follow the fundamental risk reward ratio that's present in the other characters. He's not suddenly broken tier in this version, but i'm adamant that some questionable things about him were certainly overlooked.

There aren't really such things as "power type" characters in this. The majority of the better characters are just extrmely well rounded. Her D Smash is absurd, but if you play a safe playstlyle in which you don't really throw out CCable attacks at unsafe distances or approach her from below a platform, it's not really unfair. If it's doing more than 30% consistently, then you need to check your DI and not CC as often.

I wasn't basing what I said about Peach off of what happens to me, I said that because of what I see in matches where someone takes a stock off Peach and is ahead but the Peach player lands one D Smash and their opponent is at about 50%

 

[Nausicaa]

Fox is WAY less forgiving than anyone else if you consider matchups across the board. If you get punished for missing tech skill as fox, it's going to hurt a lot more than if you missed tech skill with any other character on your list (sans maybe wolf) or any other character in the game (except for Falco as well since he's a similar weight/fall speed as Fox/wolf with a worse recovery). And I won't address the "you can play very effectively with extraordinarily little mental effort" because I'm pretty sure we all know that's just a dumb statement.

Just gonna be blunt and go ew
While the standard tech Fox has to do without messing up is things like N-Air > Waveshine > U-Smash, which is street-fighter style button sequencing and generally similar in nature every time, him messing that kind of thing up is still nearly un-punishable.
Meanwhile, Pika will get punished harder (WAY harder) than Fox off any hit in the game with so few exceptions they're actually list-able, is more technically demanding in all ways from speed to precision, and instead of guaranteed-follow-ups with moves that link into each other, it's a series and sequence of weird U-Air hit-boxes and dash-cancels and aggressive movements and pokes that literally can be a SINGLE frame off and be the difference between TAKING a stock and LOSING a stock right then and there, all on Pikachu's play/miss-play, with no further actions needed from that point.

You maaaay want to re-think your idea of punish-able and forgiving, etc.

Edit/PS: Though it's completely understandable to see it otherwise. Most of the community seems to.
I also think that's part of why things are so messed up in the main-stream all the time with this game...

 

[Boiko]

Just gonna be blunt and go ew
While the standard tech Fox has to do without messing up is things like N-Air > Waveshine > U-Smash, which is street-fighter style button sequencing and generally similar in nature every time, him messing that kind of thing up is still nearly un-punishable.

...what.
I'll punish a Fox to death for missing any of these, are you kidding?

 

[Ya Boy GP]

Melee players are infamously terrible at adapting to anything that isn't in their unimpeachably perfect game, yes.

It seems like you have a lot of pent up aggression about Melee players, considering you just generalized every melee player and said we're all bad at adapting. Lol.

Just gonna be blunt and go ew
While the standard tech Fox has to do without messing up is things like N-Air > Waveshine > U-Smash, which is street-fighter style button sequencing and generally similar in nature every time, him messing that kind of thing up is still nearly un-punishable.

I forgot whiffing an usmash is safe, nice, can't wait to implement it into my play. None of those things truly link into each other either. You can sdi the nair/drill away so the shine whiffs, or sdi the shine so the usmash misses.

Meanwhile, Pika will get punished harder (WAY harder) than Fox off any hit in the game with so few exceptions they're actually list-able, is more technically demanding in all ways from speed to precision, and instead of guaranteed-follow-ups with moves that link into each other, it's a series and sequence of weird U-Air hit-boxes and dash-cancels and aggressive movements and pokes that literally can be a SINGLE frame off and be the difference between TAKING a stock and LOSING a stock right then and there, all on Pikachu's play/miss-play, with no further actions needed from that point.

You maaaay want to re-think your idea of punish-able and forgiving, etc.

Edit/PS: Though it's completely understandable to see it otherwise. Most of the community seems to.
I also think that's part of why things are so messed up in the main-stream all the time with this game...

I already stated in my prior post that I was wrong about Fox being the most technical. "I do agree that he's not the most technically demanding, sorry about that, not sure what I was thinking." I still don't agree that Pikachu gets punished harder than Fox, but I feel like we just won't come to an agreement on that topic. If he does, then I'm sorry but Pikachu is a bad character LOL.

 

[Frost | Odds]

It seems like you have a lot of pent up aggression about Melee players, considering you just generalized every melee player and said we're all bad at adapting. Lol.

There isn't a single Melee main in my regional scene who understands/can adapt to PM matchups to any sort of a reasonable degree.

Maybe it's different elsewhere, but it's not surprising that the people least able/willing to adapt to change are attracted to the most static game with the lowest number of relevant matchups.

 

[Ya Boy GP]

There isn't a single Melee main in my regional scene who understands/can adapt to PM matchups to any sort of a reasonable degree.

Maybe it's different elsewhere, but it's not surprising that the people least able/willing to adapt to change are attracted to the most static game with the lowest number of relevant matchups.

Lucky, DEHF, Mafia, Darc, Westballz, Armada, Plup, Gahtzu, Vanz, Hbox, DJ, Axe, Chillin, Drephen, should I go on?

 

[Nausicaa]

None of those things truly link into each other either. You can sdi the nair/drill away so the shine whiffs, or sdi the shine so the usmash misses.

which is street-fighter style button sequencing and generally similar in nature every time

You quoted it yourself, and whether there are ways to escape it or not are COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to the points we're discussing. lol
Better to mention would be the Fox has to adjust to continue (which you did indirectly) and only proves the point further that Fox has it VERY EASY. lol

Edit: Same comment to Bokio could help you too.
This stuff is all considered, stop mentioning semantics so much.
AND we've all read your posts and know what you've mentioned, every time someone says something you don't have to RE-STATE the fact that you (and nearly everyone else) KNOWS what has been stated.

Otherwise I'd just go around quoting myself all day every day.

And you're taking what Odds said about Melee players WAY TOO MUCH to heart and literally.
Like seriously. wtf are you even mentioning this stuff for. lol

Go speculate a tier list or something.

@ Boiko I'm sure you know what I mean, but if you REALLY want semantics with your semi-rhetorical question then sure lol
If Fox misses an L-cancel on a N-Air on someone's face given its hit-box size, often these can go un-punished simply BECAUSE shine can come out so quickly. Even N-Air > U-Tilt is a good mix-up to threaten with.
if Fox messed up a WD out of shine, you could still get pushed too far to punish.
After a shine, Fox doesn't even HAVE to U-Smash so he could even mess that up and it's often better, and if he U-Smashes too far passed you and only the bicycle-kick section hits, it can still go un-punished.
If any of those hit or miss, he also doesn't have to do the next hit either. (If shine hits a shield he can do anything else TOO)
But yes, we're on the same page.
Last time I played PP (one of the best in the world in Melee) I beat him because he hit my shield with a Falco D-Air and messed up an L-Cancel.
This is all considered.
So don't ever mention it again. lol

This convo is just silliness.

Edit: Lots of mini-additions to this silliness.

 

[Nausicaa]

Story Titled - The 'Fox' Craze​

AKA; Foxfood for thought.

Edit: Doublesexy


In a world where Fox was a fresh character who came with Project: M...

Everyone from new players to Melee vets thought it was fun, both to play as AND against a character who was fast and ninja-like.

A character who felt so free, in the sense that they could be extremely active while still playing either a simple or complex game and still be effective.

Free, where they could play the same character and either try using this speed to test the interesting possibilities it allowed in a non-linear way that a character finally allowed in Smash, and try things like Down-B and the abundance of good combo tools for highly aggressive play, or use it all in a pressure game that the presence of speed allowed simply being NEAR opponents.

The Fox-Threads discussed the love for the ability to play a simple mix-up game in neutral, fishing for hits between the cleanly good tools in N-Air, Grab, U-Smash, and Shine, never over-complicating the game because Fox could get away with direct methods of hitting and not getting hit out of neutral and offense.

They discussed all the match-ups over time, usually when a certain trait of a character proved troublesome.

This came mostly in the form of how they could get blown up by any other character if they were caught even a couple times in the interactions in close-quarters, and the game-play moved to offense while avoiding the few key interactions that truly threatened Fox.

Both parties agreed that this was fun. Dealing with a power-house that had to be cornered and defended against, and explosive offense could come from either side leaving the match-up very honest in the sense that either party could make a few good reads and shift the game in their favor.

Though there were glimmers of something, how those interactions could be devastating, and while Fox could control this pacing with pursuit, he could also do it within evasion.

Similar to the non-interaction that Mewtwo or Sonic in other iterations had, but while their pressure was tricky, it was simple and easy for Fox to play to it.

So the melee-gods like King2Mew resorted to more run-away play, applying the simple offense when holes were open, but creating the space while avoiding the risks that could harm them. Some trick was applied and it was much more solid than alternatives.

Things developed further to corner and pin Fox down, and it was fun, and interesting, and seemed fairly functional in the game, even with such a powerhouse having moved to a camping game that was both stronger than his already strong aggression, and difficult to match for most of the roster.

Later, when higher level play was creeping up in fragments to show more glimmers of the possibilities, things like ProfSnake vs Zefrox happened, and the community got a clearer idea on something.

That perhaps there was a tiny bit of Jank somewhere.

It wasn't Shine, it wasn't U-Smash, it wasn't the tools that involved the fun and engaging activity of the game, even if all of it was a little on the strong side given the character being so fast.

There was some pointing... maybe a little head-shaking and nodding...

That lasers may be the culprit to watch in the future of the game, and maybe it's the difference-maker behind all the force that is Fox.

Fox was generally considered in the higher part of the roster from the beginning, but this further understanding and deeper look at the game and where it will go.

This allowed him to be left somewhere around here throughout every version of the game and stabilized in the area of the 'goodness-of-the-game' AKA tier-list, up and down, but always high. http://smashboards.com/threads/tier-list-speculation.331666/page-790#post-19306906

The community moved on, enjoying him, but keeping an eye on the red flash with no hit-stun that dealt damage threateningly enough to maybe...

...just MAYBE...

...warrant a little bit more start-up or end-lag or decrease in distance to be reasonably catch-able in some way.

Maybe.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Lucky, DEHF, Mafia, Darc, Westballz, Armada, Plup, Gahtzu, Vanz, Hbox, DJ, Axe, Chillin, Drephen, should I go on?

Uh, sorry for giving offense. Obviously, like any other trend in the world, that phenomenon does not extend to every single member of the affected group globally.

Anyway, can we do like a show of hands or something? Would anybody in the world actually be upset if Fox was a significantly different character in PM as opposed to Melee? Ie. something on the order of 3-5 moves being totally reworked, but his physics and essential gameplay mostly preserved.

Everybody knows by this point that Fox's current busted design has resulted in a hugely disproportionate number of other design problems that ripple through the cast. The solution, imo: we kill the batman fox.

Sorry to any moderator that actually reads my 11+ edits on every damn post.

 

[JOE!]

Seriously, nearly every character except 2-3 got game-changing alterations aside from mere "less/more % here and there". Fox&Friends should be treated the same.

 

[Jaedrik]

Story Titled - The 'Fox' Craze​

AKA; Foxfood for thought.

Edit: Doublesexy


In a world where Fox was a fresh character who came with Project: M...

Everyone from new players to Melee vets thought it was fun, both to play as AND against a character who was fast and ninja-like.

A character who felt so free, in the sense that they could be extremely active while still playing either a simple or complex game and still be effective.

Free, where they could play the same character and either try using this speed to test the interesting possibilities it allowed in a non-linear way that a character finally allowed in Smash, and try things like Down-B and the abundance of good combo tools for highly aggressive play, or use it all in a pressure game that the presence of speed allowed simply being NEAR opponents.

The Fox-Threads discussed the love for the ability to play a simple mix-up game in neutral, fishing for hits between the cleanly good tools in N-Air, Grab, U-Smash, and Shine, never over-complicating the game because Fox could get away with direct methods of hitting and not getting hit out of neutral and offense.

They discussed all the match-ups over time, usually when a certain trait of a character proved troublesome.

This came mostly in the form of how they could get blown up by any other character if they were caught even a couple times in the interactions in close-quarters, and the game-play moved to offense while avoiding the few key interactions that truly threatened Fox.

Both parties agreed that this was fun. Dealing with a power-house that had to be cornered and defended against, and explosive offense could come from either side leaving the match-up very honest in the sense that either party could make a few good reads and shift the game in their favor.

Though there were glimmers of something, how those interactions could be devastating, and while Fox could control this pacing with pursuit, he could also do it within evasion.

Similar to the non-interaction that Mewtwo or Sonic in other iterations had, but while their pressure was tricky, it was simple and easy for Fox to play to it.

So the melee-gods like King2Mew resorted to more run-away play, applying the simple offense when holes were open, but creating the space while avoiding the risks that could harm them. Some trick was applied and it was much more solid than alternatives.

Things developed further to corner and pin Fox down, and it was fun, and interesting, and seemed fairly functional in the game, even with such a powerhouse having moved to a camping game that was both stronger than his already strong aggression, and difficult to match for most of the roster.

Later, when higher level play was creeping up in fragments to show more glimmers of the possibilities, things like ProfSnake vs Zefrox happened, and the community got a clearer idea on something.

That perhaps there was a tiny bit of Jank somewhere.

It wasn't Shine, it wasn't U-Smash, it wasn't the tools that involved the fun and engaging activity of the game, even if all of it was a little on the strong side given the character being so fast.

There was some pointing... maybe a little head-shaking and nodding...

That lasers may be the culprit to watch in the future of the game, and maybe it's the difference-maker behind all the force that is Fox.

Fox was generally considered in the higher part of the roster from the beginning, but this further understanding and deeper look at the game and where it will go.

This allowed him to be left somewhere around here throughout every version of the game and stabilized in the area of the 'goodness-of-the-game' AKA tier-list, up and down, but always high. http://smashboards.com/threads/tier-list-speculation.331666/page-790#post-19306906

The community moved on, enjoying him, but keeping an eye on the red flash with no hit-stun that dealt damage threateningly enough to maybe...

...just MAYBE...

...warrant a little bit more start-up or end-lag or decrease in distance to be reasonably catch-able in some way.

Maybe.

10/10 would read again.
tbh just remove laser imo

 

[Life]

While we're on this subject:

??? ??, 2015: PMDT releases Project M 3.6. Due to an obscure change to the way laser endlag works made hours before release, for reasons nobody foresaw at the time, Fox's pivot is bugged, neutralizing his dashdance. The bug is fixed on day 1, but the PMDT holds off on releasing a patch so they can get other stuff fixed. Days stretch into months. Fox all but vanishes from the metagame, being cited as unplayable by his Melee mains.

What happens? What characters benefit? What characters suffer? Is the game ultimately better or worse? Given the small handful of remaining Fox players, what does good Fox play look like at this point?

 

[nimigoha]

I agree that Fox is too good but I want to preserve his play style.

Not 100% though, I think his neutral could be toned down a bit more, and his kill potential a bit as well. There's the classic "WTF 6 frame Firefox landing lag" that could probably take a hit too.

I find Fox a lot of fun. I find most characters fun to a degree but the speed with which you can throw moves out coupled with his movement speed make him loads of fun.

To be honest, Firefox land lag could be increased to like 20 frames. Does this kill the Sakurai combo? Yes, which is a good thing, because the name "Sakurai Combo" is literally making fun of Fox being so freaking good that his stupid recovery links into his best kill move.

 

[foxygrandpa]

I 2-3 stocked M2K's fox consistenly in 3.02 and he refused to do a MM with me in the ike-fox matchup
I recently lost to Animal, a really strong melee fox, with Ike.

It all depends on the player. Making generalizations isn't really a strong counterargument, especially when someone literally gave you a list of melee players dominating in a pm environment.

 

[Manaconda]

Anyway, can we do like a show of hands or something? Would anybody in the world actually be upset if Fox was a significantly different character in PM as opposed to Melee? Ie. something on the order of 3-5 moves being totally reworked, but his physics and essential gameplay mostly preserved.

Made an account just to respond. Yes, I think a lot of people would be upset if Fox was made significantly different in PM. I would, and I don't even play Fox or especially like the character.

Totally reworking 3-5 moves (depending on what you mean by "totally reworking") would be tough to do without greatly altering how he plays. It's definitely been said before but I think it would be better to just introduce weaknesses to options he currently has (especially his neutral game) instead of morphing his kit. Like, allow shine to be crouch-cancelled or slightly increasing the number of frames needed to jump out of it definitely makes Fox's neutral a bit harder, and would solve some of the problems the rest of the cast has with his neutral game. Other possibilities include coming up with a way to limit how many waveshines Fox can do to characters, increasing the minimum weight needed to waveshine, increase his landing lag recovery to be something similar to Sheik, etc. Point is that introducing different moves instead of just nerfing his current ones is probably not necessary.

Seriously, nearly every character except 2-3 got game-changing alterations aside from mere "less/more % here and there". Fox&Friends should be treated the same.

Falcon bias here, but I think the Melee Top 8 should play very similarly to how they do in Melee, and I'm not just saying that 'cuz maylay'. The difference between Fox and his Friends is that Fox creates a lot of polarizing MUs for the PM cast, while the rest of them don't really have that effect (except maybe Marth). Bad example considering she's on the lower end of the Melee Top 8, but I don't think too many game-changing alterations to Peach are needed. She has a fairly balanced MU spread, nothing free (except ICs lol) and nothing where you lose on the CSS by picking her.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

While not exactly what is being discussed about Melee players, I do find I really frustrating when a top Melee player struggles against a PM character (even if they won) and Johns in the post game interview about a character they haven't studied or really put any time into learning. The best example is Axe (dont get me wrong, he is one of my favs in melee), who in an interview was complaining that Lucario needed to be nerfed, invincible approaches he said. The interviewer proceeded to explain meter and his hands glowing and he had absolutely no idea about it. Not all melee players do it (recent interview with Lucky showed he wasn't like this it all, saying something along the lines of "every character has their gimmicks, or bag of tricks I call the., you just need to figure them out).

 

[Chevy]

I don't like the idea of just nerfing good Melee characters. I feel like it kills the incentive for Melee players to try and play PM when your character is pretty much just strictly worse aside from gaining the global Brawl mechanics. In this sense redesigning at least Fox/Falco really seems like the way to go.

 

[GP&B]

Nerf Fox enough to justify giving him 64 fair. That move is fun as ****.

 

[JOE!]

Replace Fox with Slippy

 

[PlateProp]

Replace Fox with 64 Fox.

Fix'd

I'm all for redesigning spacies

 

[Life]

I don't like the idea of just nerfing good Melee characters. I feel like it kills the incentive for Melee players to try and play PM when your character is pretty much just strictly worse aside from gaining the global Brawl mechanics. In this sense redesigning at least Fox/Falco really seems like the way to go.

The problem with this and the other trains of thought is that there are only so many options:

1. A game in which Melee's top tiers are nerfed
2. A game in which Melee's top tiers are the best characters
3. A game in which at least some non-Melee top tiers are buffed to the point of being stronger than the Melee top tiers
4. Some compromise between the first three options
5. A game in which the Melee top tiers are removed or reworked to the point of being unrecognizable

In the first case, there is relatively little incentive for people to play Melee's top tiers in PM. Why shouldn't they just play Melee?

In the second case, there is relatively little incentive for people to play characters in PM that aren't the same top tiers from Melee. Why not just play Melee?

In the third case, it's still fine to play Melee top tiers in PM, but then when people lose to characters outside of that group, you start hearing the gimmick, jank, etc. buzzwords getting dropped. Might as well go back to playing Melee!

In the fourth case, there is incentive to play the Melee top tiers because they are still good. There is incentive to play the other characters because they no longer require substantially more effort than Melee top tiers for substantially less results, and in the case of Melee bottom-tiers their stuff actually works. At this point, reasons to play Melee over PM have little to do with character balance; maybe it's because the Melee scene is stable and growing, maybe it's because of the subtle control differences, maybe they only own a Gamecube, maybe it's nostalgia or something else entirely. The downside is that this is a very difficult balance to strike!

In the fifth case, well... Melee's good characters define the game to a lot of people. Some of the appeal of PM is that it combines the old guard with new blood. Most people by now have an idea of how Fox versus Falco works. We had been playing that matchup for like a decade by the time PM became big. If a PM-only environment existed, we'd probably have a good idea of how ROB versus Roy works. But the ability to see Fox fight ROB and Roy is also a good thing.

 

[CORY]

In the first case, there is relatively little incentive for people to play Melee's top tiers in PM. Why shouldn't they just play Melee?

because this isn't melee, it's pm. you're playing pm because you want to play pm.

In the second case, there is relatively little incentive for people to play characters in PM that aren't the same top tiers from Melee. Why not just play Melee?

see above.

In the third case, it's still fine to play Melee top tiers in PM, but then when people lose to characters outside of that group, you start hearing the gimmick, jank, etc. buzzwords getting dropped. Might as well go back to playing Melee!

In the fourth case, there is incentive to play the Melee top tiers because they are still good. There is incentive to play the other characters because they no longer require substantially more effort than Melee top tiers for substantially less results, and in the case of Melee bottom-tiers their stuff actually works. At this point, reasons to play Melee over PM have little to do with character balance; maybe it's because the Melee scene is stable and growing, maybe it's because of the subtle control differences, maybe they only own a Gamecube, maybe it's nostalgia or something else entirely. The downside is that this is a very difficult balance to strike!

pretty much the same, as well.

In the fifth case, well... Melee's good characters define the game to a lot of people. Some of the appeal of PM is that it combines the old guard with new blood. Most people by now have an idea of how Fox versus Falco works. We had been playing that matchup for like a decade by the time PM became big. If a PM-only environment existed, we'd probably have a good idea of how ROB versus Roy works. But the ability to see Fox fight ROB and Roy is also a good thing.

if you want to play melee's metagame, go play melee. if you want to play pm's metagame, play pm. don't expect melee's metagame, or it's top characters, to transition fully 100% into pm. they're different games. if there are problematic issues that warp the development of other characters around them, those issues need to be addressed, regardless of what game they originate in. if fox is causing issues for development because he can literally do everything that matters at a competent level, he needs to be dealt with. if pit is causing issues because he can combo you into his arrows from up close and then combo from his arrows into normal combos/kill options, he needs to be dealt with.

this game shouldn't hold any character on a pedestal because of how far that character's gotten, its history, how much fun it is to play, or anything like that. if it's a problematic element, it needs to be dealt with so that the rest of the game doesn't have to be warped around it.

*all "you's", implied or explicitly stated, are a general audience you, and not directed directly towards you, life.

 

[Frost | Odds]

5. A game in which the Melee top tiers are removed or reworked to the point of being unrecognizable

I strongly contest the idea that a rework cannot meaningfully change the character, without that character necessarily becoming 'unrecognizable'. You've got a false dichotomy of extremes here. Kinda crass of me to nitpick this stuff here, sorry.

@ CORY I regret that I have only one like to give that post. Unless we're allowed to make alts for this kind of thing, in which case I'll go do that immediately. @Hylian ? :o

This guy has changed in an awful lot of ways over an awful lot of years since his birth, but nobody could ever seriously argue that his gameplay has ever been 'unrecognizable'.

Melee's design is amazing. It's absolutely incredible. But it isn't perfect. It's not tested by a dedicated competitive community - saying it can't be improved upon would be insane. PM's continued existence demonstrates that pretty solidly. It's plausible that it shouldn't be improved upon more than PM already has, but I personally remain unconvinced that there's any reason to preserve the broken metagame from a game built in 2001 by relatively competitively clueless devs, while Melee itself still exists for anyone who wants to play Melee. It's not like PM's in any danger of absorbing/somehow killing Melee's player base; why should PM protect a meta that will probably forever have more fans than PM's own?

Ugh, sorry, I can't even sentence right now. Drunken tier list ramblings whooooooooo

tl;dr so far: balancing a game around fox is, like, totally sisyphean, bruhs

 

[DrinkingFood]

Bowser's got the same problem, plus the frame data on his tech roll is just godawful.

All tech rolls are 40 frames.

 

[JOE!]

What are the "key aspects we should preserve" about Fox anyway? It seems everyone always gets fussy about individual moves when tweaking them wouldnt hurt "his key playstyle" overall. To me, his speed and ability to hit hard when he gets in, atop beign punished like a heavy with the survival of a lightweight (AKA, glass cannon) are his key attributes to his playstyle. His ability to convert into a KO (even if Uair is dumb) or gimp characters combined with his speed and commanding presence is a really cool combination in a character, especially with his weight/fallspeed combo making him eat it as hard as he dishes it 90% of the time.

So, what breaks that mold IMO? Mainly, the ability to cover the weak points by being able to outcamp zoners and get around edge guarding with safe/amazing distance recovery, punish tech chases with Shining, etc. Of the 3, the shine part is a Match-up quirk that you have to adapt for with the spacies: you don't punish the shine, you punish what they do from it, etc. Recovery is a super easy fix (just make him have landing lag and it'd be groovy). So that leaves his ability to Camp:

Everyone can Dash Dance, but in general the faster your dash movement the better your DD game is. As the 3rd fastest dasher, Fox obv has an amazing DD as he can bait out a move then have ample time/distance to punish accordingly. Other speedsters such as Sonic, Captain Falcon, MK and Charizard also rely on DDing to get somebody to open themselves up within their sphere of influence as otherwise they have no means of forcing an approach and compensate by being the top 5 fastest characters in the game to close the distance when able. Other characters threaten space with long range, projectiles or both to make up for poorer movement options in relation to faster characters. Falco is not particularly fast, but has a godlike laser to "approach" for him and dominate space, similarly characters like Mario and Link can control space in front of them with Fireballs or a myriad of projectiles and disjoints to follow behind as a safety net or as a means of walling and damaging foes. The more heavy "Campers" essentially make foes approach them under threat of losing the % war as projectiles come their way and can lead into their trap, but otherwise are weak in close quarters themselves if a foe successfully approaches them. Fox is similar in that he has a screen-wide, non-clankable, rapid-fire, land-cancelled projectile to force people to come to him if they try to run (even though he can chase them down if he wanted) and unlike other zoner/camper types he has the mobility to simply swap to the chase or run from everyone if he gets approached, if not punish very hard as once they do get in he goes back to the CQC DD game. Something should give here, and seeing as the campy/neutral breaking part of the equation is 99% his laser's fault.... yeah.

 

[DMG]

DF there's more frame data in tech rolls than just total duration. First frame a character travels horizontally varied between chars in Melee, if they standardized this in PM then OOPS muh b

 

[foxygrandpa]

If fox was given the rest of the pal nerfs and maybe something done about his dash dance, he would be fine. Saying his current design is absolutely busted is baseless, considering that only top players have yielded good results with him, which is a general trend for every character.
Even when fox blatantly wasn't the best, people complained about him anyway.

The rest of the melee tops are fine. Sheik, falco, and falcon are all fine the way they are and can have their weaknesses exploited by plenty of the cast. Peach isn't even that good as it is currently, and marth isn't even top 10 in the game. I don't know why people are complaining about them when there are plenty of pm characters like Roy, Rob, Yoshi, Wolf, Lucario, are all so high on the tier list as well, and their core play styles probably aren't getting redesigned either. As of now, I would guess that all characters are probably around the final stages of development, and in terms of the current metagame's progress and linear design goals it wouldn't make sense for anyone to get drastic changes anymore, whether theyre melee tops or not.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Every character has invincibility frames 1-20 on tech in place and tech rolls. Vulnerability of 21-26 on tech in place and 21-40 for tech rolls. What makes a bad tech roll is the total distance traveled and the distance traveled in the first 20 frames (this is Squirtle's problem). The whole hurtbox thing is more of a universal fatty problem.

 

[bubbaking]

To be fair, only top players have yielded good consistent results with any character. We don't really consider them top otherwise. That's not really a good basis to say anything is or isn't busted. At least Fox has results. Sheik hasn't really won any large tournaments (as far as I know) despite everyone generally saying that she is top 5 in this game or something. She's usually just some pocket that people bust out to take care of 'that MU' that nobody wants to deal with. Really, it's a case of usage influencing results, not results dictating viability, and I know that's always a problem when trying to figure out tier lists. Look at Melee.

All it takes is one half decent side b read

Can Ganon's sideB actually grab a crouching Squirtle? Genuinely curious here.

Also squirtle's tech is complete ***. It makes no sense that his regular roll to the side out of knockdown is better. Like the entire point of a tech roll is to let the defendee put themselves in a slightly better position compared to if they missed but Squirtle's just gives the opponent free chases

No, the point of a tech is to give the opponent less time to reactively punish your knockdown while also affording yourself some invincibility. Nothing ever specified that a tech roll is supposed to be better than a regular get-up roll. Have you ever tried tech-chasing Pika?

Also, I'm not so sure about free tech-chase. Have you ever knocked a Squirtle down and tried to catch him as he lets himself slide off the stage or plat for free? Some chars are bad in tech situations, and Squirtle has that problem a few times, but sometimes it actually pays not to tech.