Tier List Speculation

[Mc.Rad]

"I wanna play a character that has polarized matchups and mechanics and only have 5-5s XD"

But isn't that Melee Fox?

 

[tasteless gentleman]

It's taking too long though.
PMDT didn't decide yet if they want every character to be viable as solo main or they wanna keep some cancerous design in detriment of having polarized matchups.



What a hard concept to grasp, am I right ?
"I wanna play a character that has polarized matchups and mechanics and only have 5-5s XD"
LmAoOoOoOoOo
No. You wanna get carried by dumb **** and poor decision making.


Oh wow, '14ers.

I really dont like how some characters have no losing match ups and how some have very few winning match ups. For a game who at one point had balance in its mission statement, im having trouble seeing it at the current patch.

Yes its more fun but some characters still cant be used and other still need dual mains and others... well, just learn that one character and you are set. I dont think i like that.

 

[Mc.Rad]

Speed Weed


((I have really ****ty ideals I need a filter to not piss off like 20 people on these fourms))

 

[Foo]

Captain Obvious here to (duh) state the obvious! It is effectively impossible to have a large cast of characters while keeping them all balanced and significantly unique without having a ton of skewed matchups!

But wait, that's not all! If a perceived group of people are asking for two obviously mutually exclusive things, it's because they are a group of different people with different opinions that aren't part of a hive mind!

Still more, L canceling has absolutely nothing to do with balance as it is accessible to every character and effectively makes every aerial have a set amount of lag determined by the devs, the exact same as it is without L-canceling.

However, although really talented, the P:M team isn't as skilled as the team that made Smash.

What is the point of even saying this? Nothing can be accomplished by this post except offending people.

 

[InfinityCollision]

It's almost as if meta development and balance/design are intimately related processes that develop over time, rather than something you can just cook up overnight...

 

[Avro-Arrow]

It's almost as if a character having weaknesses means they lose matchups against characters who are good at exploiting those weaknesses... and that varied attributes are what make characters unique and the game exciting and diverse.

 

[Mc.Rad]

It's almost as if this game revolves around this unbalanced balance, making the game able to live for 14 years

 

[frankxthexbunny]

if 50/ 50 matchups for everybody then homogenized generally less interesting cast (not that cast isnt often uninteresting even in low tiers)

if diverse interesting cast then some bad matchups

therefore I think the best way to balance it is to do the opposite of what brawl minus did. Give everyone some bad matchups, force everyone to dual main. 41 viable diverse characters can only occur when none of the characters are viable 100 percent of the time

 

[Mc.Rad]

if 50/ 50 matchups for everybody then homogenized generally less interesting cast (not that cast isnt often uninteresting even in low tiers)

if diverse interesting cast then some bad matchups

therefore I think the best way to balance it is to do the opposite of what brawl minus did. Give everyone some bad matchups, force everyone to dual main. 41 viable diverse characters can only occur when none of the characters are viable 100 percent of the time

That... oddly works...

**** is this the Pokemon approach put into Smash???

((This may destroy the spacies as we know it))

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

That... oddly works...

**** is this the Pokemon approach put into Smash???

((This may destroy the spacies as we know it))

Depends on which gen. There are still Foxes of Pokemon in all of them though.

 

[frankxthexbunny]

That... oddly works...

**** is this the Pokemon approach put into Smash???

((This may destroy the spacies as we know it))

spacies are already on their way. I dont buy into the statement that they have no bad matchups in the slightest.

Just like think of it this way, just imagine for one second attempting to take the top eight of melee and giving them all 50 50 matchups. Just them. Puff has to be equal to falcon who has to be equal to peach who has to be equal to ice climbers who has to equal to shiek.

Impossible right?

THATS JUST EIGHT CHARACTERS

 

[Mc.Rad]

spacies are already on their way. I dont buy into the statement that they have no bad matchups in the slightest.

Just like think of it this way, just imagine for one second attempting to take the top eight of melee and giving them all 50 50 matchups. Just them. Puff has to be equal to falcon who has to be equal to peach who has to be equal to ice climbers who has to equal to shiek.

Impossible right?

THATS JUST EIGHT CHARACTERS

Yeah but I've also tried to calculate the MU's needed for each character for them to be all viable, the problem is that there's 312 total matchups in Melee (that's matchups of characters against other characters and mirror matches). Finding how each matchup will work on paper is actually more difficult in reality. Not only that but out of paper I know it will be painful for the P:M team to do that to 41 characters. It kinda makes scene why it's stuck to Melee tiers now...

 

[Strong Badam]

spacies are already on their way. I dont buy into the statement that they have no bad matchups in the slightest.

Are we talking about PM or Melee? I feel that Falco definitely has bad MUs right now in PM. Wolf and Fox are uncertain, but likely not many other than Fox beating Wolf. Their speed and conversions gives them enough axes to deal with just about any newly introduced medium IMO.

 

[frankxthexbunny]

Yeah but I've also tried to calculate the MU's needed for each character for them to be all viable, the problem is that there's 312 total matchups in Melee (that's matchups of characters against other characters and mirror matches). Finding how each matchup will work on paper is actually more difficult in reality. Not only that but out of paper I know it will be painful for the P:M team to do that to 41 characters. It kinda makes scene why it's stuck to Melee tiers now...

but trying to 50 50 it is even harder. If you go the melee route youre going to get the melee result, a top 8 and everyone else is "less" viable. Melee balance would work better if fox lost to say, peach, but wrecked falcon. Falcon wrecked marth, but lost to ice climbers. Ect ect. Melee is a rock paper scissors game in the end, no matter how you dress it up. grabs attacks shield. it's in the mechanics. Why not put it in the balancing too? If you are worried about losing at character select just make all star mode a tournament standard.

EDIT: after considering honestly all star mode balances the game considerably. All star mode is the key to balancing pm.

 

[Mc.Rad]

EDIT: after considering honestly all star mode balances the game considerably. All star mode is the key to balancing pm.

But you'll still have characters that are high tier since you choose charicters to cycle out of stock. If you did that you would need to put in more stocks than "high viable" characters and allow it so you can't have the same charicter in your stock (no double foxes).

Edit: Honestly Balancing is confusing as hell, when you add in individuality. It makes it worse since some tier lists are based off tourney results. So when people see people win with Fox, they try to main him. It's literally the entire meme speech from MGR:R. We got more results with the high tiers, so low tiers have possible hidden strength's because they haven't been recorded much (like Jigglypuff did). I don't know really though, I haven't mained Fox for 20 years in Melee.

EDIT EDIT: Ok so maybe if you do make it a perfect amount of charicters whose machups go into a multiple of 7 after being subtracted by that perfect amount and do what frank said, It would be balanced if there were the same categories like that MU sheet I used for an example. But it's probably really big and impossible to make that many

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

Why do you guys want this game to be KoF?

Spoiler

Also, Mc.Rad , you're over thinking this, a lot.

 

[tasteless gentleman]

if 50/ 50 matchups for everybody then homogenized generally less interesting cast (not that cast isnt often uninteresting even in low tiers)

if diverse interesting cast then some bad matchups

therefore I think the best way to balance it is to do the opposite of what brawl minus did. Give everyone some bad matchups, force everyone to dual main. 41 viable diverse characters can only occur when none of the characters are viable 100 percent of the time

THIS I really like this but i dont like the amount of armour they put on bowser...

And im not asking for the match ups to be 50-50 all the time, im asking for reasonable match up rates for everyone. Not this character crushes everyone or this character cant compete.

 

[Mc.Rad]

Why do you guys want this game to be KoF?

Spoiler

Also, Mc.Rad , you're over thinking this, a lot.

Exactly, that's why I'm saying that tiers are confusing. I'm probably never touching any tier thread ever again.

 

[Avro-Arrow]

Are we talking about PM or Melee? I feel that Falco definitely has bad MUs right now in PM. Wolf and Fox are uncertain, but likely not many other than Fox beating Wolf. Their speed and conversions gives them enough axes to deal with just about any newly introduced medium IMO.

I hear people say this a lot, that Falco has bad match ups. He's personally the matchup struggle at the most. Tbh even in Melee I prefer using Sheik against Falco and Marth against Fox but in Project M I don't have any real answers. It's not something I would have any trouble getting on board with but I can't think of any negative match ups off the top of my head. Peach maybe? Roy? Idk. I'm sure there are soft counters to him. I'm just unaware.
P.S. Pika, Squirtle, Ike, Sonic (somewhat), and Kirby (can gimp, still not good match up but still winnable imo), can do stuff, but I wouldn't put any of them as counters to Falco. M2, MK, Rob and G&W can put in work too, but those are all slight negatives imo.

 

[frankxthexbunny]

I'm going to do some research, talk to some people i trust, and then make a thread in PM General discussion about slowly but surely making all star mode the default tournament setup, the rules and such that it would entail, and the slight balancing decisions that would come with that in mind.

 

[steelguttey]

if youre gonna say that fox has bad matchups, then list the matchups fox loses. until then dont claim things without backing them up, please. it gets us nowhere

 

[frankxthexbunny]

if youre gonna say that fox has bad matchups, then list the matchups fox loses. until then dont claim things without backing them up, please. it gets us nowhere

if you're talking to me, well I have, many many times, in this thread even. But it's beside my point so whatever

 

[Ningildo]

samus, i'd argue still mewtwo, bowser (yes, bowser), falcon ROB maybe ike sonic zelda lucario maybe diddy possibly peach and falco

Went ahead and digged it up. But still, you've yet to give good reasoning behind some of these (questionable) counters, other then "I think they beat him, so they do", so do elaborate.

Also, how would all star mode balance PM? You just randomly concluded that from...what? You mention losing at character select and all of a sudden ASM is the solution to PM balance issues? Surely you have something more solid to base this on?

 

[frankxthexbunny]

Went ahead and digged it up. But still, you've yet to give good reasoning behind some of these (questionable) counters, other then "I think they beat him, so they do", so do elaborate.

Also, how would all star mode balance PM? You just randomly concluded that from...what? You mention losing at character select and all of a sudden ASM is the solution to PM balance issues? Surely you have something more solid to base this on?

already said I'm making a thread about it. No point derailing here.

also Edit: If you check the spot you quoted i spent the next like 3 pages explaining why i think fox isn't all that great. I really dont see the point of repeating the argument.

 

[Zigludo]

if youre gonna say that fox has bad matchups, then list the matchups fox loses. until then dont claim things without backing them up, please. it gets us nowhere

Bowser ROB Snake Falco Wario Marth GnW Sonic Lucario, maybe D3 (close to even from what I've seen but I don't play the character myself) ... those are just out of the characters I actually understand. in terms of burden of proof, I think the claim that "Fox doesn't lose any matchups" is a lot more extreme than "Fox has a good spread but loses some" anyway, lol. in all cases except Falco and Marth the matchup imbalance is mainly a function of punish disparity, ie the character in question has a much easier time of KO'ing Fox than the other way around, with the imbalance in neutral game being insufficiently slanted in Fox's favor to make up for it. I do think he probably goes even or wins in most of his matchups but not all

Also, how would all star mode balance PM? You just randomly concluded that from...what? You mention losing at character select and all of a sudden ASM is the solution to PM balance issues? Surely you have something more solid to base this on?

PM is a game with many very drastically different characters. the design oddities and specifics of many of these characters lead to certain characters having ridiculously bad (or free) matchups against certain other characters and on certain stages, while remaining otherwise useful (or balanced).

the idea is that by having each player play 4-8 matchups per round, you'll normalize the matchup spreads present within any given game/set. it won't make any of the individual matchups more inherently balanced, but it will result in fewer matches being determined in large part by counterpick rather than in-game performance.

I think the reasoning is sound. in a game with 41 characters I would rather be forced to learn to use multiple movesets as opposed to occasionally needing to bite the bullet on an unwinnable matchup

 

[frankxthexbunny]

...

this but as I said I'd like to avoid discussing this in this thread since it's not exactly on topic. I'll work on a ruleset for counterpicks and such and have the thread up tonight.
EDIT I do however think it's relevant to the thread to point out that instilling weaknesses and bad matchups in characters and to stop balancing characters for a perfect 50 50 spread will be necessary if all star mode does become a standard tournament default.
also I thought your melee main was falcon not ganon.

 

[Steel Kangaroo]

Okay jumping back in here to center this discussion because holy ****, we got sidetracked.

Let's talk grab speed/reward balance. Currently it seems to be totally skewed in a way that poops on tether grabs, for no real reason. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Link, Tink, Ivysaur, Lucas, and Samus all have slow grabs (>10 frames). This means that they are more or less unable to shieldgrab even mediocre pressure, and are much more punishable on whiff. In return, they gain (supposedly) increased distance.

But let's talk about this. Lucas and Tink don't seem to have any better grab range than Marth or Snake, who both have fast normal grabs. So why do Snake and Marth "get" such a long grab range when they have none of the cons of a tether grab? Clearly it's not because of followups...Snake and Marth have chaingrabs, free sticky settups, and DI mixups/techchase setups. Tink gets especially shafted in this regard because he doesn't have a kill throw or a guaranteed followup throw...at least Lucas gets a kill throw but tbh his grab seems awful except to kill. Additionally, there seems to be a pretty high variance in the tether grabs of startup speed and endlag. Link has a relatively short startup, while Samus has the slowest grab in the game (frame 16), with Ivy not far behind at frame 14. Samus also has an insane amount of endlag. There doesn't seem to be any difference in reward between say, Link's grab and Samus'. If anything, Link has more robust followups and kill setups from grab than Samus does, in addition to an objectively better grab (less startup+endlag).

So let's break it down...do tether grabs have reliably longer grab ranges than the rest of the cast? NO
Do tether grabs come out faster than other grabs? NO, they come out a lot slower
Do tether grab characters have better followups from grabs? NO, there seems to be no association between grab speed and followups from grab

So the real question: why does Link have such a better grab compared to Ivysaur, Samus, or Lucas? Or really: why does Link "need" to have such a better grab to the characters I mentioned?

Also this is totally unrelated to grabs but the PMDT needs to look at Ivysaur's vinewhip sweetspot. Either it should be much stronger and as hard to hit as it is now, or they should make the sweetspot easier to hit. Right now the sourspot right near the sweetspot hits SO OFTEN. It's really frustrating and seems like its not meant to be that hard to aim. There's been some evidence that the vine goes into the z-dimension and makes it harder to hit and the hitboxes unintuitive.

 

[frankxthexbunny]

because samus and lucas are better than link in almost every other way so giving him an equal grab would help no one

tether grabs really do need to be looked at though

 

[Ningildo]

already said I'm making a thread about it. No point derailing here.

also Edit: If you check the spot you quoted i spent the next like 3 pages explaining why i think fox isn't all that great. I really dont see the point of repeating the argument.

Fair enough regarding ASM being tournament standard, but I didn't ask why you don't think Fox is that good, I asked why the mentioned Fox counters are Fox counters.

Also, when's Oli's grab armor?

 

[_Chrome]

Okay jumping back in here to center this discussion because holy ****, we got sidetracked.

Let's talk grab speed/reward balance. Currently it seems to be totally skewed in a way that poops on tether grabs, for no real reason. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Link, Tink, Ivysaur, Lucas, and Samus all have slow grabs (>10 frames). This means that they are more or less unable to shieldgrab even mediocre pressure, and are much more punishable on whiff. In return, they gain (supposedly) increased distance.

But let's talk about this. Lucas and Tink don't seem to have any better grab range than Marth or Snake, who both have fast normal grabs. So why do Snake and Marth "get" such a long grab range when they have none of the cons of a tether grab? Clearly it's not because of followups...Snake and Marth have chaingrabs, free sticky settups, and DI mixups/techchase setups. Tink gets especially shafted in this regard because he doesn't have a kill throw or a guaranteed followup throw...at least Lucas gets a kill throw but tbh his grab seems awful except to kill. Additionally, there seems to be a pretty high variance in the tether grabs of startup speed and endlag. Link has a relatively short startup, while Samus has the slowest grab in the game (frame 16), with Ivy not far behind at frame 14. Samus also has an insane amount of endlag. There doesn't seem to be any difference in reward between say, Link's grab and Samus'. If anything, Link has more robust followups and kill setups from grab than Samus does, in addition to an objectively better grab (less startup+endlag).

So let's break it down...do tether grabs have reliably longer grab ranges than the rest of the cast? NO
Do tether grabs come out faster than other grabs? NO, they come out a lot slower
Do tether grab characters have better followups from grabs? NO, there seems to be no association between grab speed and followups from grab

So the real question: why does Link have such a better grab compared to Ivysaur, Samus, or Lucas? Or really: why does Link "need" to have such a better grab to the characters I mentioned?

Also this is totally unrelated to grabs but the PMDT needs to look at Ivysaur's vinewhip sweetspot. Either it should be much stronger and as hard to hit as it is now, or they should make the sweetspot easier to hit. Right now the sourspot right near the sweetspot hits SO OFTEN. It's really frustrating and seems like its not meant to be that hard to aim. There's been some evidence that the vine goes into the z-dimension and makes it harder to hit and the hitboxes unintuitive.

Well in regards to Link, his grab game is very important. Samus already has nair and upb out of shield, and regardless her dash grab has much less endlag than Link's iirc. For Samus, that is the grab you should be using. In the case of Lucas, his game doesn't really consist of grabbing from what I've seen (besides the rare combo with dthrow or the uthrow kill). Yeah, Ivy's tether/grab thing really sucks and Marth's range is kinda busted. But those two are outliers in the grand scheme of grabs. Snake's options out of shield aren't that great anyways (uboos isn't invincible anymore, and his grab is punishable). You make some good points, but while Link's *standing* grab is objectively better than Samus', he as a character is not, evidenced by his lower placement on various tier lists.

 

[Steel Kangaroo]

Well in regards to Link, his grab game is very important. Samus already has nair and upb out of shield, and regardless her dash grab has much less endlag than Link's iirc. For Samus, that is the grab you should be using. In the case of Lucas, his game doesn't really consist of grabbing from what I've seen (besides the rare combo with dthrow or the uthrow kill). Yeah, Ivy's tether/grab thing really sucks and Marth's range is kinda busted. But those two are outliers in the grand scheme of grabs. Snake's options out of shield aren't that great anyways (uboos isn't invincible anymore, and his grab is punishable). You make some good points, but while Link's *standing* grab is objectively better than Samus', he as a character is not, evidenced by his lower placement on various tier lists.

Right so I'll follow up because I do agree that Samus has better projectiles/out of shield options than Link in general. It seems like Ivysaur just gets the worst of every world. Her CC isn't great, her projectiles aren't nearly as good as Samus or even Link, her grab is almost as slow as Samus', and she has no other quick out of shield option. So WHY does her grab need to be so bad? From a design perspective I don't really see why other than "because tether"

Also if you think Marth's grab range is busted I don't see why you don't have a problem with Snake's...AFAIK Snake's grab range is the biggest in the game.

++I didn't even discuss Olimar's weird quasi tether grab but it's one of the least intuitive things about the game at the moment. Someone who plays Olimar can spit the frame data facts at me but for some reason Olimar's grab seems like a weird combination of slow and amazing. It beats spot dodge but is slow and loses to most other defense options.

 

[_Chrome]

Right so I'll follow up because I do agree that Samus has better projectiles/out of shield options than Link in general. It seems like Ivysaur just gets the worst of every world. Her CC isn't great, her projectiles aren't nearly as good as Samus or even Link, her grab is almost as slow as Samus', and she has no other quick out of shield option. So WHY does her grab need to be so bad? From a design perspective I don't really see why other than "because tether"

Also if you think Marth's grab range is busted I don't see why you don't have a problem with Snake's...AFAIK Snake's grab range is the biggest in the game.

++I didn't even discuss Olimar's weird quasi tether grab but it's one of the least intuitive things about the game at the moment. Someone who plays Olimar can spit the frame data facts at me but for some reason Olimar's grab seems like a weird combination of slow and amazing. It beats spot dodge but is slow and loses to most other defense options.

It really sucks that Ivysaur gets shafted, but to my knowledge Marth has the longest grab range, followed by (with a noticable margin) Charizard, Dedede and Roy, then maybe Snake. I wish Snake had a better grab range lol, because it's pretty punishable compared to Marth's and it's attached to a character with a much worse neutral game (which is also why I have no problem with it, even if he did have a better grab than right now).

 

[frankxthexbunny]

It really sucks that Ivysaur gets shafted, but to my knowledge Marth has the longest grab range, followed by (with a noticable margin) Charizard, Dedede and Roy, then maybe Snake. I wish Snake had a better grab range lol, because it's pretty punishable compared to Marth's and it's attached to a character with a much worse neutral game (which is also why I have no problem with it, even if he did have a better grab than right now).

http://i.imgur.com/Mrzepjz.png
credit goes to magus,

 

[Star ☆]

It really sucks that Ivysaur gets shafted, but to my knowledge Marth has the longest grab range, followed by (with a noticable margin) Charizard, Dedede and Roy, then maybe Snake. I wish Snake had a better grab range lol, because it's pretty punishable compared to Marth's and it's attached to a character with a much worse neutral game (which is also why I have no problem with it, even if he did have a better grab than right now).

I've found that Snake's grab range is quite appropriate for his kit, especially considering the potency of his throws and what he can do out of them. If you're having issues with grabbing shorter characters or characters with sleeping animations closer to the ground remember that his dash grab's grabbox is lower but shorter range compared to his standing grab.

Being aware of both is quite important to making sure you actually land the grab. His pivot grab is also great, I love to use it after dropping a grenade with shield, pivot grabbing then armouring the grenade explosion with a throw startup.

 

[_Chrome]

http://i.imgur.com/Mrzepjz.png
credit goes to magus,

Thank you, good sir.

Also Star ☆ : I have no problems with the height of his grab, since the fixed it so that he can grab just about any sleeping/crouched character now. If I do recall though if can be punished easily. Yet I haven't played as Snake since the beta quite a while back (and I can't remember the frame data, RIP).

 

[Bazkip]

Thank you, good sir.

Also Star ☆ : I have no problems with the height of his grab, since the fixed it so that he can grab just about any sleeping/crouched character now. If I do recall though if can be punished easily. Yet I haven't played as Snake since the beta quite a while back (and I can't remember the frame data, RIP).

All grabs are punishable on whiff.

 

[Player -0]

Player 4 Snake with nade begs to differ

 

[_Chrome]

All grabs are punishable on whiff.

No duh, but some more so than others... I'll take a look at the frame data when I finish some laps in the pool tonight.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Yeah, tethers are in a rough spot. I don't think any really have the super potent throws (maybe samus does, also kind of link) to make up for there terrible grabs. There are many ways to fix it, and adapting even just one or two of these per character is good enough. Each tether is in a different spot, so each needs different help.

1. Potent throws
Essentially throws that shouldn't be allowed in the game, but are bcuz tethers.
2. Reach max range quicker
Goes without saying, but I think all tethers should reach max range in 1-4 frames
3. Different grabs
The Samus/Ivysaur dash grab approach where it is shorter range but quicker. Maybe consider making the standing grab the quicker one for shield grab stuff and then you have the option of a quicker, shorter grab or a slower, longer one.
4. Speed em up
Make the primary drawback of tethers the end lag rather than the startup too. Maybe even as far as 8 framers for short tethers and 11 for long ones (like Link).

For reference, I consider Link, Ivysaur, and Samus to have long tethers and Toon Link, Yoshi, Olimar, and Lucas to have short tethers.

 

[Chevy]

Samus' standing grab starts frame 14, dash grab frame 17, and pivot grab is frame 19. Her biggest problem is the time it takes her grab to reach max length, which is around 6 or 7 frames. Luckily, she gets the blessing of being able to grab out of the air, which somewhat mitigates the slow extend time. She has free up-throw follow-ups on spacies(who doesn't), but most of the cast can DI d-throw away to escape any guaranteed combos. A lot of the cast can DI d-throw away and just jump out before she can even reach them. It's not really a huge problem for her, just one of her defining weaknesses. She does get guaranteed stuff on certain floaties off of d-throw at kill percents though.

I'd like Samus to get her standing grab range from Melee back, and probably pull in some of the active frames on dash grab and increase the active frames on standing grab a little bit. Dash lingers like crazy at the tip but standing grab-boxes terminate as soon as they reach max length, it's just inconsistent.