Upcoming 1.0.4 Balance Patch in November!

[Thinkaman]

Sakurai stated in an interview that LM has the worst winrate online, yet he believes he is fine and the winrate stems from new players thinking Mac is "an easy win". Seems Sakurai does more than just look at winrates and buff/nerf accordingly.

http://i.imgur.com/EBcz969.jpg Scan of the interview, for a translation go to http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/632937-super-smash-bros-for-nintendo-3ds/70561893

This perspective is incredibly good news! It's not really surprising, but it's the first information we've had about patch methodology.

Linked text for the lazy:

"average and mediocrity are almost the same"

Patch to adjust the balance of the game "Super Smash Bros. for 3DS / Wii U" will be distributed in around mid-November. Until now, when I completed a Smash Bros game, there was no further development after that. But that makes it impossible for the game to be played for years. This time We have a mechanism of patch delivery. So, We decided to do a balance adjustment before November 21 when the Wii U version will be sold in North America. But there is a problem about this. You can't play online between a hardware that is patched and one that is not patched.

On the Wii U version, there's no problem because it updates automatically if connected to the Internet and the gameplay between more than 2 devices is limited to online. On the Nintendo 3DS Version, however, there are some people who are not connected to the Online, and hardwares that are patched and ones that are not patched will likely be mixed. On the other hand, We can't afford to separate the balance of the 3ds version from that of the Wii U version...

We have a tutorial on how to update the game on the official Smash Bros website. It's definitely necessary, so I'd like you to download it. If any of your friends are in trouble with doing it, please help them. I'll explain how we adjust the gameplay balance. Firstly, a monitor team assembles information and do practices multidirectionally. Specifically, researching the results, KOs, and trendy tactics in online matches. Next, I get the team to make a proposal about the balance adjustment. I also ask them to consider that killing fighters' advantages and getting rid of their disadvantages too much spoils the fun.

In response to the proposal, I adjust the balance. If that proposal is too difficult to be dealt with a patch, or spoils the fun, I pass it up and use another proposal. After a test play of the monitor team, the patch contents will be confirmed. We can actually see the results of the online matches. The winning percentage of respective fighters can be checked. It's comprehensive data of the global matches, which is deadly accurate.

Of course we can't publish this data, but I can tell you one thing. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the winning percentage of all fighters lines up in a stepwise manner. but this time, there's someone with the lowest percentage of all fighters by an overwhelming margin. It's "Little Mac". His advantages and disadvantages are both extremes. Although he has a high-performance dodge and a megaton punch that dominates everyone, his jump ability is quite low. A simple back throw + an aerial pursuit can be fatal for him.

But those who have a lot of experience in online matches will probably feel strange about this. I think most of you consider him rather powerful. His low winning percentage is most likely due to the fact that those who think "Little Mac is too powerful!" play as him and get beaten up. A lot of people use him because there's an impression out there that he's dominating all the time, but that doesn't mean you can win easily when you play as him. This phenomenon might be ideal. I have often featured in my column that I regard dynamic range as important. But I also suggest that it's not right to look at things only based on the results in online matches. I believe that taking the average of fighters performance is a bad move in the game.

 

[CaliburChamp]

A lot of competitive smashers are biased or just taking a wild guess. Talking about Mii bans is disgusting. Even if the shorter miis are better its not by much, they would still be in the same tier group. Disgusting and an absolutely uneducated claim just cause dapuffster KOed someone at the TOP platform at 40% in a low ceiling stage. Other powerful hitting characters can do that as well on that stage and on the top platform...

 

[Thinkaman]

A lot of competitive smashers are biased or just taking a wild guess. Talking about Mii bans is disgusting. Even if the shorter miis are better its not by much, they would still be in the same tier group. Disgusting and an absolutely uneducated claim just cause dapuffster KOed someone at the TOP platform at 40% in a low ceiling stage. Other powerful hitting characters can do that as well on that stage and on the top platform...

To be fair and play devil's advocate, the one d-throw up-b 3 exploit he got from the platform on Yoshi's was baloney.

Of course, he lost that match, and the set. All his other wins were well-earned.

The problem is that all his good play is getting lumped with the one piece of baloney.

Man, I'm bad at devil's advocate today.

 

[chipndip]

This perspective is incredibly good news! It's not really surprising, but it's the first information we've had about patch methodology.

Linked text for the lazy:

Problem: He's taking data from online play. Like...For Glory play. This means that the things that probably won't be considered are most likely...

1) Miis

2) Custom moves

3) Viability outside of FD

In other words) Anything that isn't For Glory stuff

I don't like beating on that horse because no one here agrees with me, and I'd like to believe that there's room for me to be wrong here, but if this change log is anything like I imagine it's gonna be...

 

[TTTTTsd]

Time to sandbag online with Dr. Mario! (I am of course kidding)

Honestly I'm glad he has an idea of how to approach this but I hope it's more than just For Glory balancing cause, yeesh.

 

[chipndip]

Time to sandbag online with Dr. Mario! (I am of course kidding)

Honestly I'm glad he has an idea of how to approach this but I hope it's more than just For Glory balancing cause, yeesh.

But how would he collect data on that realistically? He caters to a huge audience when making/balancing these games, and Nintendo's pretty ignorant when it comes to grassroots scenes. Not like any company's obligated to know about them, but still.

 

[gameprodigy12]

c) I'm not saying this game can't ever be improved, balance-wise, but some people are letting the salt get too far into their system. The whining is really overblown in many cases.

I can see that, people are complaining left and right over OP characters and nerf them to extreme levels. There's also the people who whine about the nerfs that people ask for or want.

2) Anyone saying Rosalina doesn't stand to be nerfed is somewhat shady and shouldn't be trusted. Zamus, Shiek, and Rosa+Luma are top candidates for nerfing before anyone else. Bible thump that and tell your friends.


#MyShaky2CentsBasedOnWhatISkimmed

So your saying that anybody with a different opinion against the vocal minority shouldn't be trusted? Maybe you shouldn't be. R+L already got a nerf and it's fair but she doesn't need another one, Zamus idk what can be nerfed but if be fine either way, Sheik I can somewhat agree to a nerf to an extent. Us R+L mains have to deal with the unecessary and unjust hate for our character and we and the character still get hated on. When nobody should be in the first place, heck even bored shouldn't be the case.

 

[ミスティック Speed]

Problem: He's taking data from online play. Like...For Glory play. This means that the things that probably won't be considered are most likely...

1) Miis

2) Custom moves

3) Viability outside of FD

In other words) Anything that isn't For Glory stuff

I don't like beating on that horse because no one here agrees with me, and I'd like to believe that there's room for me to be wrong here, but if this change log is anything like I imagine it's gonna be...

That...would suck.

 

[chipndip]

So your saying that anybody with a different opinion against the vocal minority shouldn't be trusted? Maybe you shouldn't be. R+L already got a nerf and it's fair but she doesn't need another one, Zamus idk what can be nerfed but if be fine either way, Sheik I can somewhat agree to a nerf to an extent.

What I'm saying is that Rosa+Luma is obviously top-tier. No one wants their char nerfed, but Rosa+Luma already got nerfed, anyway. It's blatantly obvious. That char is ridiculous in the right hands with those nearly unstoppable attacks + Luma support. No character gets only ONE nerf in fighting games. Just being real with you here.

Zamus is just lightning fast with an extremely annoying stun gun. The overall reach on each shot could use a decrease, seeing how most Zamus players just short hop shoot it all over the place until a shot hits. Also, her grapple laser shouldn't grab while returning to her. Not sure why that was ever a thing, but her grab game is insane because of it. You can hardly spot dodge that thing. That's probably it, really.

Shiek...just do something to her. I currently call her "Mrs. Any Button" because it describes her so perfectly. She's the only char that gets away with just slamming attacks on a whim and hoping something hits. Recovery needs to be added somewhere in her aerials, but I don't wanna act like I have exact answers on that. Floppy fish attack should receive a decrease in overall distance it can travel on block. Makes it horrid to punish properly (I have to full-on dash with Yoshi to barely reach her in time for a dash attack...and that's YOSHI'S dash attack).

 

[chipndip]

That...would suck.

Not for me. I've been saying it for a while but no one listened to me. It'd be a great time to pull out my "I told ya so" cake.

 

[Tristan_win]

The winning percentage of respective fighters can be checked. It's comprehensive data of the global matches, which is deadly accurate.

Of course we can't publish this data,

Why? ...Why can't you tell us? Only the 1% who play this game competitively would even care to take the time to look up the results and draw conclusions. Even then we would just dismiss them as not a creditable source.

I disagree with this decision.

 

[gameprodigy12]

What I'm saying is that Rosa+Luma is obviously top-tier. No one wants their char nerfed, but Rosa+Luma already got nerfed, anyway. It's blatantly obvious. That char is ridiculous in the right hands with those nearly unstoppable attacks + Luma support. No character gets only ONE nerf in fighting games. Just being real with you here.

Zamus is just lightning fast with an extremely annoying stun gun. The overall reach on each shot could use a decrease, seeing how most Zamus players just short hop shoot it all over the place until a shot hits. Also, her grapple laser shouldn't grab while returning to her. Not sure why that was ever a thing, but her grab game is insane because of it. You can hardly spot dodge that thing. That's probably it, really.

Shiek...just do something to her. I currently call her "Mrs. Any Button" because it describes her so perfectly. She's the only char that gets away with just slamming attacks on a whim and hoping something hits. Recovery needs to be added somewhere in her aerials, but I don't wanna act like I have exact answers on that. Floppy fish attack should receive a decrease in overall distance it can travel on block. Makes it horrid to punish properly (I have to full-on dash with Yoshi to barely reach her in time for a dash attack...and that's YOSHI'S dash attack).

Like I said about R+L, she's gets unjust and unnecessary hate from the vocal minority and a reasonable nerf happened. We are fine with the nerf, but adding more nerfs to her would just say "**** you R+L mains" and people would just be happy about us getting bashed over that. While also saying it's boring to watch the character play in matches.

 

[ミスティック Speed]

Why? ...Why can't you tell us? Only the 1% who play this game competitively would even care to take the time to look up the results and draw conclusions. Even then we would just dismiss them as not a creditable source.

I disagree with this decision.

I believe that more then 1% of the Smash Population play the game competitively. I'd be willing to say, at most...we consist of about 5%. ^-^

 

[chipndip]

Like I said about R+L, she's gets unjust and unnecessary hate from the vocal minority and a reasonable nerf happened. We are fine with the nerf, but adding more nerfs to her would just say "**** you R+L mains" and people would just be happy about us getting bashed over that. While also saying it's boring to watch the character play in matches.

I'm being real with you: More than just the respawn time needed to be fixed on that char.

Real again: She's gonna get another nerf, most likely. Not guaranteed, but I'm putting my money on it. Don't take it the wrong way, but it's gonna happen.

 

[HeavyLobster]

Why? ...Why can't you tell us? Only the 1% who play this game competitively would even care to take the time to look up the results and draw conclusions. Even then we would just dismiss them as not a creditable source.

I disagree with this decision.

If he were to tell us he'd get a lot of complaints when he neglects this data in favor of more enlightened methods such as roulette wheels and Ouija boards.

 

[Agosta44]

What's the over/under DK gets no buffs whatsoever

 

[HeavyLobster]

What's the over/under DK gets no buffs whatsoever

I wouldn't count on any real rebalancing at this point outside of bug fixes and the whole RosaLuma respawn thing. DK could really use a slight disjoint on a couple of his moves though.

 

[Agosta44]

I wouldn't count on any real rebalancing at this point outside of bug fixes and the whole RosaLuma respawn thing. DK could really use a slight disjoint on a couple of his moves though.

He doesn't really need disjointed, more like his smashes need to actually connect instead of his arms completely whiffing if they're next to him.

 

[chipndip]

He doesn't really need disjointed, more like his smashes need to actually connect instead of his arms completely whiffing if they're next to him.

Yoshi has the same issue. I'm just lucky Yoshi's still good.

 

[Thinkaman]

Why? ...Why can't you tell us? Only the 1% who play this game competitively would even care to take the time to look up the results and draw conclusions. Even then we would just dismiss them as not a creditable source.

I disagree with this decision.

Blizzard, Riot, Valve, and other eSports developers adamantly refuse to release internal balance data.

I believe it was Rob Pardo who gave a GDC talk once, urging developers to never under any circumstances do this--that it is one of the worst things you could do to your competitive community.

This is a very easy call; that sort of data becomes incredibly self-fulfilling and has a toxic shadow over the community.

We already see this in League, where unofficial data of high accuracy exists and acts as a gravity well of public perception. It would be far worse if the data was official, and far worse still in a game without League's frequency of balance updates.

 

[Meru.]

I believe that more then 1% of the Smash Population play the game competitively. I'd be willing to say, at most...we consist of about 5%. ^-^

Brawl sold about 8 million copies. Do you really believe 400000 of those played competitively? Even 0,005% (16,000) is a big stretch. His 1% was just a random number.

 

[gameprodigy12]

I'm being real with you: More than just the respawn time needed to be fixed on that char.

Real again: She's gonna get another nerf, most likely. Not guaranteed, but I'm putting my money on it. Don't take it the wrong way, but it's gonna happen.

Well if it does, like I said it's "**** R+L mains" cause she's fine with the respawn time being nerfed.

 

[Nat Goméz]

This perspective is incredibly good news! It's not really surprising, but it's the first information we've had about patch methodology.

Linked text for the lazy:

Very interesting indeed, I'll just put what i wrote in the other thread:

Well, at least that means we won't get changed/nerfed in any way and Sakurai wants to keep Little Mac how he is.

"His low winning percentage is most likely due to the fact that those who think "Little Mac is too powerful!" play as him and get beaten up."

*Sakurai trying to make understand the abundance of scruby Macs online*

"I think most of you consider him rather powerful. [...] A lot of people use him because there's an impression out there that he's dominating all the time, but that doesn't mean you can win easily when you play as him."

*Sakurai trying to say that Good Macs dominate, but that doesn't mean is easy to play the character*

I'm happy at least his trying to clarify.

Maybe for all the loose rate the scrubs gave us... maybe we'll get our KO punch buffed

 

[dedekong]

Buff Wii Fit Trainer please and thank you.

 

[AvariceX]

Buff Wii Fit Trainer please and thank you.

1. WFT is fine against anyone other than Villager and a few other short characters. A grab hitbox that doesn't whiff on any standing characters would be the only buff I would welcome; other than that WFT is quite good.

2. Quit it. I hate seeing what the eternal beta test (LoL, Street Fighter, BlazBlue, CoD) has turned gamers into. Focus on yourself not your character. If your character doesn't work pick another one. Either way it hasn't been long enough for us to really know who is too weak and who is too strong.

As for the Sakurai column, he said some things I vehemently disagree with but his last paragraph was surprisingly cognizant compared to my internal impression of him.

 

[Tagxy]

Why? ...Why can't you tell us? Only the 1% who play this game competitively would even care to take the time to look up the results and draw conclusions. Even then we would just dismiss them as not a creditable source.

I disagree with this decision.

Its probably a good thing especially by nintendo. At least from their perspective, the common players would rush to the characters doing well.

Edit: ahhh thinkaman responded shouldve read the thread.

Brawl sold about 8 million copies. Do you really believe 400000 of those played competitively? Even 0,005% (16,000) is a big stretch. His 1% was just a random number.

The highest viewed stream of smash was around 1/3rd of a million. EVO melee had like 150k. Puts a lot of perspective on our community.

 

[Cruncher93]

Blizzard, Riot, Valve, and other eSports developers adamantly refuse to release internal balance data.

Blizzard regularly released win rates for all the matchups (mostly being something like Terran wins 49.1% vs Zerg) for each league and even included information on oppressive strategies and which strategies they try to promote with coming changes. They stopped a while ago, probably since they're focussing on LotV where the big balance shifts will happen.

Of course thats not too much data, however they even run PTRs to test patches with everyone in the community and often don't end up making changes because the PTR data showed them their errors.

 

[Crescent_Sun]

I feel it's definitely different with a game that doesn't involve a frequency of micro transactions. This is a game unlike League of Legends where your buffs to a character would support people buying said character and likely their skins. This game is one where they want you to play everyone, because every single character is a walking advertisement for a different game.

If they show, for example, that Mega Man is the worst character in the game, do you think Capcom would be happy about that? less people playing Mega Man means less new people are likely to become invested in Mega Man and be interested in buying Mega Man games. This is only one of their many possible motivations for this. Not the best example because Mega Man is dead, but you get the idea. The more they can ride on the idea that their cast is balanced, the more people feel allowed to become invested in whatever character they choose.

 

[Tristan_win]

Blizzard, Riot, Valve, and other eSports developers adamantly refuse to release internal balance data.

I believe it was Rob Pardo who gave a GDC talk once, urging developers to never under any circumstances do this--that it is one of the worst things you could do to your competitive community.

This is a very easy call; that sort of data becomes incredibly self-fulfilling and has a toxic shadow over the community.

We already see this in League, where unofficial data of high accuracy exists and acts as a gravity well of public perception. It would be far worse if the data was official, and far worse still in a game without League's frequency of balance updates.

I still disagree as for glory is not accepted as the competitive standard of the smash community and it does not have a formal ranking system. Because of this any result generated should be taken lightly... Heck even if we took the results seriously they would still be no more toxic then are own tier list or collection of tournament results.


....Strange, I just convince myself not to care anymore about this. ~shrugs~

 

[Conda]

A lot of competitive smashers are biased or just taking a wild guess. Talking about Mii bans is disgusting. Even if the shorter miis are better its not by much, they would still be in the same tier group. Disgusting and an absolutely uneducated claim just cause dapuffster KOed someone at the TOP platform at 40% in a low ceiling stage. Other powerful hitting characters can do that as well on that stage and on the top platform...

Low percentage KOs from top platforms are not the problem. It's the fixed KO bug. You haven't mentioned it above, leading me to think you aren't familiar with it. Which is fine, but we are not complaining about low percentage top platform kills.

 

[smashmachine]

I feel it's definitely different with a game that doesn't involve a frequency of micro transactions. This is a game unlike League of Legends where your buffs to a character would support people buying said character and likely their skins. This game is one where they want you to play everyone, because every single character is a walking advertisement for a different game.

If they show, for example, that Mega Man is the worst character in the game, do you think Capcom would be happy about that? less people playing Mega Man means less new people are likely to become invested in Mega Man and be interested in buying Mega Man games. This is only one of their many possible motivations for this. Not the best example because Mega Man is dead, but you get the idea. The more they can ride on the idea that their cast is balanced, the more people feel allowed to become invested in whatever character they choose.

Capcom: "Mega Man? who's that"

 

[Thinkaman]

I still disagree as for glory is not accepted as the competitive standard of the smash community and it does not have a formal ranking system. Because of this any result generated should be taken lightly... Heck even if we took the results seriously they would still be no more toxic then are own tier list or collection of tournament results.

....Strange, I just convince myself not to care anymore about this. ~shrugs~

I do think it would be interesting for developers to publish select results after or alongside comprehensive balance updates, to establish confidence.

Riot sometimes does this on a micro-level, with designers casually mentioning statistics on forums to back up imminent changes. (Actually, like Sakurai just did regarding Little Mac)


Also on a similar note that no one has brought up yet, as eSports have evolved we've also slowly learned that public beta testing for balance patches doesn't really work, due to the self-selection of the sort of players that elect to take part in beta tests. Isolated public betas are mostly good for stress-testing and compatibility testing (PC only), but rarely of any use for balance.

 

[EdreesesPieces]

Like I said about R+L, she's gets unjust and unnecessary hate from the vocal minority and a reasonable nerf happened. We are fine with the nerf, but adding more nerfs to her would just say "**** you R+L mains" and people would just be happy about us getting bashed over that. While also saying it's boring to watch the character play in matches.

Not to mention what if we find out in a month that three character can 0 to death RL easily? (Similar to how Ness and Lucas got grab release infinited by many chars in Brawl) Then it will seem like the nerf was totally unfair because she'll drop to mid tier even without the nerf. I'm not a fan of nerfing characters until the metagame has balanced.

I don't hate RL players or the character. I have no idea why people do. She's got serious weaknesses (very slow, very light) that I feel will be exploited once people have Gamecube controllers.

 

[Ryusuta]

Capcom: "Mega Man? who's that"

"He was that fat guy on Street Fighter X Tekken, right?"

 

[Conda]

I've been discussing one inch punch legality in the rule set thread:


http://smashboards.com/threads/competitive-smash-ruleset-discussion.368605/page-12#post-17964849


This needs to be patched to give customs a good reputation. Without a patch, then we'll need to either ban all customs broadly with the reasoning that "customs are not balanced", ban Miis for the same reason, or allow customs and make specific bans in specific cases, such as one inch punch.

The last option is the one I condone, as it is the one that involves the least amount of bans while retaining metagame health and reducing balance issues that are caused by our rule set. If we allow it, then our rule set of "all customs and Miis are legal" has the side effect of legalizing broken buggy moves as a result. That would make it a bad rule by definition.

There is still skepticism about customs being balanced or not, which has led to integrity-retaining bans for most tournaments, and even Japan as a whole. One inch punch makes that skepticism well placed. It makes the ban on customs have proof supporting its reasoning.

 

[TTTTTsd]

I think I would not shed a tear if you just outright banned Miis. They were clearly not designed for this kind of thing, honestly. There's too much variables IMO and the broken Piston Punch just adds to it. Customs are fine, but Miis I'm just not feeling.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

I think I would not shed a tear if you just outright banned Miis. They were clearly not designed for this kind of thing, honestly. There's too much variables IMO and the broken Piston Punch just adds to it. Customs are fine, but Miis I'm just not feeling.

I'd shed several, as I really like the Mii Brawler's playstyle and would be sad to see it go

 

[Conda]

I think I would not shed a tear if you just outright banned Miis. They were clearly not designed for this kind of thing, honestly. There's too much variables IMO and the broken Piston Punch just adds to it. Customs are fine, but Miis I'm just not feeling.

An easy enforcement is average height and weight Miis as the limit. Then if a custom move is broken and needs fixing then it can be disallowed until it gets fixed. Better than banning all customs instead, which is the norm. And it's only the norm because people were worried some customs would be broken. Which they were right about, so what does that say?

 

[TTTTTsd]

One custom being broken doesn't equal other customs being broken. In this case it's literally one move but Miis are very sketchy to begin with. I wouldn't mind enforcing average rules but if people just think they gotta go, I'd rather see them go than the customs being dropped completely. That would like, quick-kill the coolest part of this game to me.

They could ban it until the glitch is gone (the custom itself) or just axe the Miis. The former is obviously more efficient but I could see them doing either one. Outright banning customs would just bother me though.

 

[Zero Suit Senpai]

My only concern about custom banning is that a lot of people want them banned before we have even tried them competitively. People say they'll make the game unbalanced, but we don't have the knowledge to say that because only 40%~ or so of tournaments are allowing them in the first place.

Mii Brawler's 1-hit KO custom seems...suspect. But even that warrants testing to see if it's actually a problem. Characters have had BS 0-death tactics in smash before, and they haven't even been that good (didn't Toon Link have some extremely similar tech with his dmsash in Brawl?). Discussion in the 1-inch punch thread of the Mii Brawler forum seems to suggest that the setup is very avoidable (last time I read it, at least).

Could customs break the game? Sure, possibly. But we should give them a chance before we start claiming that they will.

I have an unjustifiable hatred of Miis so I won't comment on whether or not they should be banned in tourneys or not since I'm biased as hell in that regard lol.