Tier List Speculation

[nimigoha]

Wasn't aware there were people who hadn't ignored MTL Kyle.

ICs have a neutral game and better recovery and better punishes than Bowser. Easy to go so much further into that and look at other characters but the base idea of ICs being the worst is laughable, like everything you post.

 

[KakuCP9]

Also, can we reopen that discussion on how RNG is dumb?

I think its more to do with beam sword (along with Saturn and bomb) being dumb than the RNG being dumb since (unless you're Armada) the odds pulling stuff like that are extremely low. Peach doesn't really depend on luck of the draw when using turnips so while it might be silly, its not really that unhealthy. Again, toning down what she gets from freak draws would probably be a better idea since she will still retain the quirks she had since the beginning of time that make her a little more interesting.

 

[Vashimus]

If you consider not having an infinite to be a bad thing rather than it being a basic freaking principle of having good game design, then I don't know what to tell you.

 

[SunJester]

Guys I think Diddy should be able to have a 1/50 chance of pulling a super peel that does 34% damage and super huge knockback.

You know what else would be totally hype? If Diddy could pull weapons too from his down-B. I mean it'd be so cool if he could pull out like a smart bomb or a lip's stick. We should definitely add that into the game.

Whats that?

Its a stupid idea?

Thank god no other character has that mechanic!

 

[nimigoha]

#abolishoutlandishRNG2K15

And then take a look at other RNG and toss around ideas on how to retool that.

 

[MTL Kyle]

I could probably be persuaded to move him around, but he just seems very frail, with a poor combo game, mediocre defense and terrible approaches; there just aren't a lot of redeeming qualities to the character other than being annoying to hit when he's crouching, and having a bunch of jumps. He's even relatively easy to edgeguard because of how slow he is in the air, so his long distance recovery doesn't help nearly as much as it theoretically 'should'.

He also has a bunch of useless moves on top of his poor basic stats, which doesn't really help him with his pigeonholed playstyle.

What I like to say is that Kirby has really strong tools overall, but there is no connection between them. He ends up having to resort to a weird bait and switch game with mediocre punishes and a big bag of tricks.

The ICs momentum glitch was removed in 3.6, MTL Kyle.

Good. Character still sucks though

Kyle do you even play this game or do you just browse the subreddit for gyfs?

:^)

 

[MTL Kyle]

I think its more to do with beam sword (along with Saturn and bomb) being dumb than the RNG being dumb since (unless you're Armada) the odds pulling stuff like that are extremely low. Peach doesn't really depend on luck of the draw when using turnips so while it might be silly, its not really that unhealthy. Again, toning down what she gets from freak draws would probably be a better idea since she will still retain the quirks she had since the beginning of time that make her a little more interesting.

IMO, turnip pull is super punishable and if the RNG of Vegetable is that much of a threat for you, you should try to play close quarters and not let Peach pull out those. Fortunately, there is leeway to remove stitch and bombs from the game and still make the move relevant (probably just increasing the damage of turnips, reducing recovery a couple of frames)

If you are going to rework RNG just because Armada used well the beamsword, say goodbye to Misfires, 9 Hammers, Stitches, Gordos as well. Thank god that Armada doesn't know the Aerial Glide Toss as well, or that match would've been an easy 3 stock LOL

 

[Binary Clone]

If you are going to rework RNG just because Armada used well the beamsword, say goodbye to Misfires, 9 Hammers, Stitches, Gordos as well.

Yeah I would miss exactly none of those things

 

[MTL Kyle]

Yeah I would miss exactly none of those things

At least you are honest about it LOL

 

[Tarul]

Guys I think Diddy should be able to have a 1/50 chance of pulling a super peel that does 34% damage and super huge knockback.

You know what else would be totally hype? If Diddy could pull weapons too from his down-B. I mean it'd be so cool if he could pull out like a smart bomb or a lip's stick. We should definitely add that into the game.

Whats that?

Its a stupid idea?

Thank god no other character has that mechanic!

Th...that's not really comparable though ._. Diddy's banana exerts pressure while it's in hand and while it's lying around on stage. Peach's turnips can only really be thrown! A better comparison to Diddy's projectile that has an RNG factor would be Dedede's Waddles, since you have the three waddle/gordo types, and they also exert some ground pressure (except Gordos)

Ever been bodied by a Waddle-doo?

But even then, nothing really compares to the ground control that Diddy bananas provide, except perhaps Rob gyro.... and there's no RNG to that move.

 

[Tarul]

But speaking of Peach and jank, how come I don't see anyone complaining about Peach's down-smash? I get that it's like one of the few moves that really sticks it to crouch-canceling (and we all know how much PM players hate crouch-canceling!), but doing 60+% in damage? That's like twice the damage of a Bowser f-smash. Uncharged!

And then if you happen to get hit by a Peach d-smash as she's rising on a platform (FoD, Delphino's), then prepare to eat similar amounts of damage for not even crouch canceling!

The only reason people are okay with Peach d-smash is because it's in Melee. If this were introduced in PM, people would be frothing at the mouth day 1. IMO, it deserves a damage cap (since the function of the move is fine) - something like 35%.

35% from an uncharge smash attack is still pretty insane, so it's not like Peach's playstyle will be super affected by this ._.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Peach's dsmash is really not that big a deal. I don't think it's "bcuz maylay", I just don't think there's any real need to change it. Something can be powerful without immediately presenting itself as a design problem.

Can someone run me through the counterplay to ICs ledge handoffs once they're in progress? Setups into fair spikes look very strong, but I don't play competent ICs very often.

 

[standardtoaster]

Keep the double posts to a minimum, guys. MTL Kyle, knock it off with the whole "circlejerk" and "hugbox" stuff.

 

[nimigoha]

Could Peach's Dsmash be altered so it functions the same, but does less damage?

Like keep the first and last hits at the same % but reduce the 3 middle hits to be like 3% each, just with compensated knockback so the move functions the same?

It's not really anything I lose sleep over but a frame 5 move with the potential to do 65% if you catch someone in the wrong spot is weird.

It could still be considered a CC punish move, but would punish for like 30% instead of 65%.

Just wondering theoretically, I don't really want this to become a discussion. RNG is more important.

 

[Beorn]

Could Peach's Dsmash be altered so it functions the same, but does less damage?

Like keep the first and last hits at the same % but reduce the 3 middle hits to be like 3% each, just with compensated knockback so the move functions the same?

It's not really anything I lose sleep over but a frame 5 move with the potential to do 65% if you catch someone in the wrong spot is weird.

It could still be considered a CC punish move, but would punish for like 30% instead of 65%.

Just wondering theoretically, I don't really want this to become a discussion. RNG is more important.

From Umbreons post a few pages back. I think I'm starting to agree. As long as everyone has a couple of stupid mechanics like peaches dsmash or foxes shine, or Falcons knee, it will balance them out. Some characters right now are lacking these traits though.

I have always been of the opinion that moves like these are dumb and need to be nerfed out of the game. With a growing many people feeling that most of the pm cast is on the lower end of good. People seem to want the characters to overall be better. Seems like I'm just going to have to deal with that, and things like peaches Dsmash will stay.

 

[Ogopogo]

I'm not opposed to beamswords and saturns being removed from Peach's arsenal. That Armada v Prof match was pretty silly. But I think doteyes and stitchfaces are exciting and give peach more, I don't know, flavor. Removing all rng would make for a more boring game. Not that I wouldn't appreciate stitchfaces being a tad less powerful. Although thanks to PM's mechanics they're easier to deal with than in Melee.

almost forgot the bob-ombs. screw those guys lol

 

[Life]

Turnip crits (for lack of a more elegant collective term) do have the positive effect of making it unwise to just camp out Peach, for characters capable of doing so, as she is increasingly likely to pull out something game-changingly strong the longer the match goes on. This could be done by making it more consistent (every tenth turnip is a crit result, and then randomly choose which one? obviously not with even chances of any of them at that rate, you'd want mostly doteyes) if the PMDT decides that RNG is a problem.

That said, beam sword was made to look super centralizing right there when Armada did pull one. Maybe beam sword animations could be looked at?

 

[DrinkingFood]

From Umbreons post a few pages back. I think I'm starting to agree. As long as everyone has a couple of stupid mechanics like peaches dsmash or foxes shine, or Falcons knee, it will balance them out.

That's not how balance works nor was umbreon talking about balance. Umbreon was talking about the design of the cast as a whole in relation to the kind of power level we want them to have. At the point characters feel adequately powerful, they tend to have some tools that are tremendously strong with near indefensible design. He is in support of those because done right, the players of those characters get to enjoy the character more.
Daily reminder that balance and design are separate concepts existing on different axes

 

[Beorn]

That's not how balance works nor was umbreon talking about balance. Umbreon was talking about the design of the cast as a whole in relation to the kind of power level we want them to have. At the point characters feel adequately powerful, they tend to have some tools that are tremendously strong with near indefensible design. He is in support of those because done right, the players of those characters get to enjoy the character more.
Daily reminder that balance and design are separate concepts existing on different axes

Whoa guy. I was just using his post to make my own points I don't think I made that clear.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Whoa guy what
You said you agreed with umbreon's post then proceeded to restate what you agreed with, even tho that agreement was a misunderstanding of what he said
I mean either way the point you made was wrong, that's not how balance works

 

[nimigoha]

I'd be in favour of removing items from Peach, but shifting their pull probabilities to Dot Eyes, and keeping Stitch.

 

[Thane of Blue Flames]

Just make Peach and Donkey Kong switch Down-Bs.

~Balance~

 

[KakuCP9]

I feel like there was a misunderstanding in what I said. Its not me being alright with something game-breaking, but more so being aright with RNG in general with some weird phenomenon that happens once a blue moon that just needs to be cleaned up (i.e beam sword hitboxes, Saturn etc).

Although in the pursuit of an ideal game, I can see why this would frowned upon since even though its damn near impossible to abuse, the fact something like that even exists would be undesirable.
Can we still keep stich? I'll be sad if he's removed.

 

[MLGF]

Can someone explain to me why people think Snake is OK?
A godly punish game, obscene stage control, a dair with hitstun for days, ability to sticky while shielding, and an exploding hitbox he can use to make punishing his recovery far more intimidating then one would expect, amazing crouch height and crouch cancel combo.
Look, I get his neutral isn't amazing, but it's far from poor like you guys are claiming. Plus his ability to force approaches alone makes that claim ****ing pointless.

 

[Player -0]

I mean. I'd like to see some of Snake's stuff "nerfed"/rebalanced.

For example, a lot of characters can't sweetspot the ledge vs. D-Smash/Sticky at all. Lolwut? Snake has a ton of ridiculous stuff such as Up-throw chain grabbing/leading into sticky AND KOing by itself before Marth's (It's like 180%). He doesn't even need it considering he has D-Throw. Sticky, though it was nerfed (Pretty sure about this), insta kills anyone if they go higher than a certain point. For some characters it's really hard to deal with D-Smash (like run up shield is so iffy. You actually just die if you mess up). Dair has questionable hitstun or hitlag but I'm bad at SDI'ing (mindset wise, not prepared) so idk. Sticky through shield is questionable but eh.

idk. Some stuff should be re-done imo.

Also. G&W's 9. It can be "primed" for a OHKO and confirmed into. Should it be made more of a damage thing than a straight kill thing? idk. I feel like it might need some addressing.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

Ugh, please stop saying "so much hitstun". Little known fact, every time that is said, a puppy from Africa dies. Dont kill puppies from Africa! Dont spread misinformation!

 

[nimigoha]

I wouldn't mind seeing sticky toned down a little bit, make it so Uthrow>C4 kills when you get grabbed at like 110%. Angle of Uthrow could be brought down as well.

So after trawling through changelists, I found that Snake's Uthrow hasn't been changed since 2.6b, when it was given slightly more endlag. I'd be interested in a KB or angle change on it. I dunno, it's so great at chain grabs at low percents and incredible kill confirms at high percents.

Also found in a changelist (3.0 I think) that C4's angle was changed from 80 to 90...

 

[Nausicaa]

There was a massive discussion about Snake's centralizing changes when this patch hit.
What happened to him is basically directly comparable to buffing Knee and Uthrow or B-Air and Rest.
Didn't really 'help' him be cooler, but made basically the only thing he already did 'well' even better, having less reason to do much else.
Which isn't necessarily a BAD thing, but everyone from Puff to CF are already short on the 'flavor' side, and Snake has too much cool stuff to be shoved into that group.

I'm with you KakuCP9
At the Thursday regional weekly thing here, there was a single Peach ditto friendly that I watched, and everything but the Beam Sword was pulled. The match ended with the Stitch.
Silly stuff with RNG is kind of crazy sometimes. Toned down and more frequent would be nice. (Misfire was handled decently, still kind of crazy but much better than Peach's junk and G&W digits)

Whoa guy what
You said you agreed with umbreon's post then proceeded to restate what you agreed with, even tho that agreement was a misunderstanding of what he said
I mean either way the point you made was wrong, that's not how balance works

This happened right after the string of posts too. I was really confused because everyone seemed to be agreeing with things that were completely contradictory, and continued until a paragraph was written to re-phrase everything and ignore the questions in the confusion. The last points made sense and were good so I'm glad I did, but it was silly for a while.
Reading-comprehension lacks in general on these forums for sure, but this happens more often than it doesn't.

I think the issue is assuming you have to act, engage, or accomplish something in neutral to be on the path to winning. Don't have to totally defend center stage, find a perfect counter to their bait, etc. People with leads, and especially characters with mobility or above average walling/countering potential, should probably start reconsidering how often they approach (Does Squirtle *need* to approach after a lead?)

People focus on things like maintaining good positioning after throws or once combos end, certain projectile patterns or usage, etc. Go be a God on stage positioning, movement, flexibility, etc first. Be tight, efficient, comfortable on every pixel of the stage, and be mean if their character sucks relative to your situation.

You could 0-death someone from a 50-50 approach, or have them lose by shrinking their chances of winning to minimal while being half as aggressive and much safer. Option #2 is the one waiting for strong players of applicable characters to fully apply it.

You just tl;dr'd something I was talking about for like 5 pages of walls-of-text not too long ago. About everything from Samus to Ike to Kirby and general neutral games being more than swords and spacies.

2 things
1) This stuff doesn't fly here. Swords and DDs and hard-converting tools out of raw neutral is allowed exclusively in this game.
2) 3 of your last 4 posts are reminiscent of discussions I had with you on here ages ago. Good to see smurtdmg is back, even if temporarily.
Looking forward to the next wave of goodies from the midst of your ****posting. lul

 

[Rᴏb]

snake getting buffed the way he did from 3.5 was definitely questionable. it didn't help that the only input his lead designer would give us was usually "LOL snake is so OP "
nausicca basically nailed it. i'd really like to know what the **** the pmdt was thinking.

also why are we still able to talk about things like stitch-faces/beam swords/bomb-ombs, judgment, gordos, and pikmin pluck? why haven't such obviously stupid things been dealt with at this point??

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

Can someone explain to me why people think Snake is OK?
A godly punish game, obscene stage control, a dair with hitstun for days, ability to sticky while shielding, and an exploding hitbox he can use to make punishing his recovery far more intimidating then one would expect, amazing crouch height and crouch cancel combo.
Look, I get his neutral isn't amazing, but it's far from poor like you guys are claiming. Plus his ability to force approaches alone makes that claim ****ing pointless.

The thing about snake is that his playstyle is as infuriating as 3.02 zelda to most characters. It's not until he is up against either high air mobility characters, or characters like fox, falco, wolf, diddy, even tryhardimar and the links that you realize his inability to alter his zoning tempo means that he can't truly wall you out to force approaches.

What truly makes snake scary is when he uses his kit to limit space on the stage, and goes in under his terms, and hits with high damaging up b >what is sdi dair combos, and chaingrabs. After you break him down you realize he must be up close for his great options, needs platforms for his playstyle, and is a more centralized/worse tink with more so polarizing attributes than o.p anything. Though admittably don't know much on the character, only ran into one good one and first stock was like welcome to pm. Could easily be swayed by a video or two of a toxic inducing snake with great mixup potential, but he seems just right in terms of "balance". Advice... ban battlefield

And to answer your question, there was no interest in Normalizing rnjesus, but we are intrigued by the idea of a random diddy super banana, but feel like it should be similar to the Mario kart double dash banana that breaks up into 3 on trip. Great suggestion guys.

 

[nimigoha]

I think it's because there's conflict over RNG.

Despite most people calling it out as bad game design, there must be people in the PMDT who argue for its inclusion?

Either that or they're trying to figure out the best way of removing it or balancing it.

Like they could easily remove Peach items, make Stitch worse, make hammer power less varied (tone down 7, 8, 9, and buff lower numbers), make Gordos happen every 6th Waddle Toss and Waddle-Doo happen on the second and fourth (Dee Doo Dee Doo Dee Gordo), and giving Olimar permanent 1 of each Pikmin or devising some other balance system. I don't see this being hard to do at all.

But the discussion it would spark would be huge. There would definitely be loads of people who hate the new changes.

It's really something that's left in, that inherently goes against the concept of "good design", simply because it was there already. Competitive game, where the winner should be the person who played better. That's like my favourite thing about competitive smash. The only time that ever gets circumvented in Melee is when Luigi gets a clutch misfire or Peach gets a Stitch/item, or when Pokemon Stadium glitches like crazy.

If people designed a competitive fighting game from the ground up and one guy said "but this move, let's make this move randomly just OHKO your opponent!" that would so not fly.

RNG in PM is just a case of precedent.

 

[_Chrome]

The thing about snake is that his playstyle is as infuriating as 3.02 zelda to most characters. It's not until he is up against either high air mobility characters, or characters like fox, falco, wolf, diddy, even tryhardimar and the links that you realize his inability to alter his zoning tempo means that he can't truly wall you out to force approaches.

What truly makes snake scary is when he uses his kit to limit space on the stage, and goes in under his terms, and hits with high damaging up b >what is sdi dair combos, and chaingrabs. After you break him down you realize he must be up close for his great options, needs platforms for his playstyle, and is a more centralized/worse tink with more so polarizing attributes than o.p anything. Though admittably don't know much on the character, only ran into one good one and first stock was like welcome to pm. Could easily be swayed by a video or two of a toxic inducing snake with great mixup potential, but he seems just right in terms of "balance". Advice... ban battlefield

And to answer your question, there was no interest in Normalizing rnjesus, but we are intrigued by the idea of a random diddy super banana, but feel like it should be similar to the Mario kart double dash banana that breaks up into 3 on trip. Great suggestion guys.

Why can't the leader of the bunch get the giant banana? Or better yet get his cart from Double Dash... I think we'd be better off giving Diddy red bananas that OHK like the 9 hammer.

 

[LupinX]

I think Snake is in a good spot right now. The only change imo is to change IASA frames of sticky back to 20. The rest of it is okay.

 

[Life]

I mean, I defend well-thought-out RNG in competitive games in this very thread nearly every time it comes up. Doesn't mean people listen to me, but it's not an ironclad random-is-bad thing IMO.

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

RNG in fighters isn't a new concept. A quick Google search will show you people could endlessly debate on this topic and not just in fighters either. IMO, It's just better when all the varied results are equal in effectiveness.

 

[nimigoha]

RNG in fighters isn't a new concept. A quick Google search will show you people could endlessly debate on this topic and not just in fighters either. IMO, It's just better when all the varied results are equal in effectiveness.

Do you mean like the difference between a Waddle-Dee and a Waddle-Doo?

All the RNG in smash gives drastically different results, apart from the different turnip faces which are cosmetic.

 

[InfinityCollision]

RNG as an element of competition is not inherently bad design...

The only major problem with Peach's turnips right now is that beam swords are too good (dat range). Tone down beam swords instead of removing them entirely and we'll be fine.

 

[Searing_Sorrow]

RNG as an element of competition is not inherently bad design...

The only major problem with Peach's turnips right now is that beam swords are too good (dat range). Tone down beam swords instead of removing them entirely and we'll be fine.

Not sure about others, but my issue with rng comes from when the counterplay against the normal occurrence is drastically different than the outlier. Example: Ddd waddles, my instinct is to nair through them and get in on ddd during the end lag of his side b. But the fact that a 1/9 chance that a Gordo exist that my nair will no longer go through, and will either outright kill me, or pop me up for Ddd's amazing edgeguards is enough of a deterient for me to avoid using this as an option due to risk reward. This even ignoring it stays out for 4 seconds with drastically different ground properties than the common waddles is an example of bad rng cause the counterplay varies, and close range is virtually not reactable.

With peach, aside from her getting a bf sword, we have mr. Saturn who's mechanics drastically vary from turnips, and who's shield damage creates outrageous shield pressure for peach. The bomb counterplay is at least identical to turnip, agt it back or don't get hit (still bs, but at least similar counterplay.). Same argument I make for why g&w 9 is at least tolerable. Avoid the attack and d.i out of the combos that lead to judgement is acceptable counterplay in all scenarios. Not many just raw judgement in neutral, so making the argument that all of them should be clankable by the same moves isn't really the issue.

Imo good rng can have a stronger result, but should have identical counterplay, such as judgement being good rng, and gordo and beam sword being bad rng.

 

[NOTMalachi]

Really guys...beam sword? Like it's okay I guess...but this is what's being talked about? Most of beam swords moves are pretty easily counterplayed by shielding since everything has massive endlag on it and makes peach unable to grab. Like I get that this is Knee Jerk Speculation...but are people really considering beamsword to be OP based off Armada and Prof messing around?

 

[Rᴏb]

"Lol it's fine it has counter play" isn't an argument against the idea that randomly being rewarded with things like beamswords, stitch faces, purple pikmin, gordos and 9 hammers is ****ing ridiculous. As others have mentioned, RNG isn't inherently bad design, so if the possible outcomes for using an RNG-based move were all similar in effectiveness we wouldn't ever talk about this ****.

But that's not what we have. We have moves that have such huge disparities between how they decide to act.