Recently, we discovered a new mechanic discovered by Strong Bad that he calls "Vectoring."
I'm not going to explain it as there's already a thread by Strong Bad that explains it...but what I can tell you is that it's pretty much another form of DI, but much easier to perform.
Anyways, this mechanic has recieved mixed reception from a lot of people. Some think it may not hurt the game that much (I'm one of them, and I'll explain why) and some think it will hurt the game a lot.
According to Strong Bad, this mechanic could limit combos and promote defensive play or just make Smash 4 a heavy-neutral game. Honestly, while I do get Strong Bad's opinion on how this can promote defensive play, I personally think this mechanic won't hurt combos that hard and I don't think it will hurt the game a lot. True, it will change the way people play Smash, but it won't hurt it a lot.
Here are some pros and cons I think this mechanic could offer:
Pros:
- Courages people to go off-stage to get early kills.
- Mindgames/Mix-ups will be nessassary IMO.
- ledge mechanics will be fully capitilized.
- Combos will still possible, you need to make a right guess where the opponent goes and does to continue your follow ups.
Cons:
- Matches last much longer
- Defensive play will be used if using a projectile character, such as Duck Hunt Dog
Before you comment below, one thing I also want to point out is that combos aren't what makes matches fun to watch. As I mentioned in the "Pros" part, it's the mix-ups that make it entertaining to watch. I've played fighting games for years and learned that mix-ups in fighting games and Smash Bros plays an important role for exciting matches and hype moments. The ironic part about it is that it's fine in other fighting games and yet, in Smash Bros, most just spread hate on it and thinks only combos should make the game fun to watch. I get combos are exciting to watch and Smash Bros and Street Fighter are different fighting games, but they're still part of the same genre. Super Smash Bros Melee heavily relied on Mix-ups to keep things going. The long insane combos were only possible in Melee with hitstun and L-cancelling and you can get out of those combos with good DI and hope the opponent guesses wrong. Brawl had combos, but the problem was that airdodging out of hitstun ruined combos and made them useless, but if you predict what the opponent does, you can follow-up. Smash 4 will have combos, you just need to make good guesses and continue them. Melee is my favorite of the series competitive wise, but I still like Brawl a lot, and any game, whether fighting game or not, can be competitive. Smash 4 seems to have a nice bright future, but it depends on how the meta at the moment plays the game.
In conclusion, the vectoring mechanic, in my opinion, WILL definitly change the way the game plays and while I do agree that it offers problems, I don't think it will hurt combos that much and I do think you will have to take advantage of the ledge mechanics to get early kills. Mix-ups will play a huge important role in this as well. It's like every other mechanic in every fighting game, they will offer some good or bad things. We do also have the "Rage" mechanic, if proved quite good, could counter this mechanic, but it's too early to judge and we should just wait for a few months for the meta to evolve and see if the games become much faster on the Wii U version.