Was the change in the ledge mechanics better or worse for this game competitively?

[Thundering TNT]

As we all know, in this game, ledge hogging was removed. I've heard people say that this is a good change, because it makes the game much more aggressive, since you have to go deep to secure a kill, instead of just jumping on the ledge. I've also heard it said that it makes the game worse, because it makes the game slower, and thus less entertaining, because people will live longer. Iwas wondering what everyone here thought of the change, and if it was good or bad for this game on a competitive level

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Do you want a Shiek that uses Vanish to ledge stall in melee or a planking Metaknight?

 

[allshort17]

Honestly, I just want a mix of old and new. Keep the ability to ledgehog while still taking away invincibility on consecutive grabs and the ledge game would have been perfect. Maybe even keep the ability to trump as long as the character on the ledge's invincibility is out.

 

[W.A.C.]

The removal of ledge hogging has made off stage combat far more interesting and varied. Where as before, it just came across as a really lame way to kill your opponents and some characters used to suffer horribly from the mechanics. It also gave the fast characters with good recoveries a stupidly high advantage over the others (like Brawl Meta Knight). Plus some tournaments felt compelled to implement ledge grab limits because ledges had way too much dominance in past Smash games (mainly for the generous amount of invincibility). So overall, I'd say good riddance to ledge guarding. Killing your opponents through ledge trumping is far more interesting anyways.

 

[MysteriousSilver]

I think this game has the best ledge mechanics in the series. I don't personally feel that a player is weaker while holding the ledge in any other Smash game, though I admit I know next to nothing about 64. A player in this game is forced to either use one of the standard get-up options, or go for a much-riskier-than-perviously ledgehop. The majority of characters don't have moves that are safe enough to throw out aerials and have them blocked, airdodging into the ground is no longer a good idea, wavelanding is clearly out of the question, making the most reliable options the standard get up, roll, ledge attack, or jump, all of which can be punished hard on a proper read pretty easily and send them back offstage for another guess.

Hell, in Brawl, as Pit, I'd happily play the whole match from the ledge. It was not uncommon to see my opponents BACK UP TO HALF STAGE TO ALLOW ME TO GET UP after eating a bunch of uairs on certain stages, and even there I could shoot arrows at them from the ledge if I really felt like being a ****.

While trumping doesn't give the same reward as edgehogging, it's something that can be executed on reaction to a player who's holding the ledge too long and can be VERY rewarding, securing a kill or at least forcing them to make their way back onstage again.

The ledge is more unsafe than it ever has been as far as I'm concerned, and that's a good thing.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I really like ledges not being fortresses; being on a ledge is a rightly scary state of being with a proper sense of urgency to get back safely on the stage. The ledge trumping vs edgehogging business we could argue about (I like it personally), but the non-invincible regrab mechanic is probably the second best mechanical change smash 4 made from Brawl (airdodge landing lag was the best one).

So a funny thing, we actually wanted to have consecutive ledgegrabs be non-invincible in our original design of Balanced Brawl, figuring it would both eliminate planking and make ledge traps super interesting. We were completely unable to discern the arcane way Brawl handled ledge invincibility and couldn't code it and had to settle on forced ledge climbs after too many ledge grabs without being hit. Our back-up option worked okay, but when I saw this system in 4 and saw it worked how I originally envisioned it would, I was really happy and felt kinda smart to be honest.

 

[SuaveChaser]

I still don't like the changes to the ledge it always feels free people rarely go offstage at all.

 

[BestTeaMaker]

I still don't like the changes to the ledge it always feels free people rarely go offstage at all.

You'll see a lot of strong players like Trela or ZeRo take advantage of the ledge mechanics in different ways, from getting the ledge trump -> aerial conversion or punishing players for regrabs. I don't think you can say that people rarely go offstage when it's actually the best way to get the kill confirm for many players.

 

[S_B]

The ledge mechanics are decidedly better in SSB4 than any previous game.

For starters, the fact that edgehogging is gone means that characters with dubious recoveries aren't immediately F-tier 30 seconds after the game was released. Ganondorf, Duck Hunt, both Pits and a number of others would be absolute garbage if their recoveries didn't ledge snap and if they could be edgehogged.

Second, it makes off-stage play more doable and a LOT more interesting. I've seen team games where all four players were off the stage at the same time, only returning to the ledge to reacquire a double jump and then jump back off into the fray. It's just awesome to play or watch.

Third, the ledge is no longer an eternal safe zone, which is how it should've been anyway. The ledge should generally not be a fortress of safety.

Fourth, things like rolling onto the stage counting as you holding the ledge until the animation finishes were complete nonsense.

Fifth, ledge trumping is a far more interesting mechanic because you can surprise a player with it and it creates a situation where you can earn a quick kill if you're fast about it.

Bottom line, the new ledge mechanics are vastly superior to those in previous SSB games for a myriad of reasons. The only thing I would even consider changing is having the time before invincibility kicks in again on regrab be longer than it is.

 

[Sean²]

I think it takes the fear of offstage play away, therefore making offstage play more interesting. The only real danger is getting ledge-trump punished and going too deep to recover.

Ledge stalling isn't a safe thing any more, Sakurai must have watched some old Brawl tournament videos.

 

[Iceweasel]

I feel it just about evens out. While offstage play is more interesting, trumping also slows the game down immensely. However, the major advantage of ledge trumping, the off-stage game, is neutered due to the 2-stock standard.

That said, I feel that the edgeguarding game has taken a big hit. While it's nice that infinite planking is gone, there's less options for a player on the edge to get back onto the stage. You can't really mindgame your opponent when grabbing the ledge twice will allow you to be knocked off of it.

 

[Teshie U]

Trumping only slows the game down "immensely" because people are afraid to explore it and 90% of players just on the stage and wait to punish a ledge getup option.

I personally feel like trumping is a brilliant way to make ledge play complex and rewarding for hardcore players without being extremely harsh for casual/low level play. No more racing to the ledge or accidentally gimping someone at 0% because you panic up B first.

 

[LunarWingCloud]

I like it. It means that lazy edgehogging isn't a thing.

Start earning your kills, gimpers.

 

[Raijinken]

Trading stock speed for ledgegame depth is a trade I'm willing to make any day.

Besides, edgehogging is dead boring to play and watch.

 

[DunnoBro]

The ledge is fine, it was the only way to balance certain recoveries without completely changing them across the board.

The issue is that in addition to the easier to grab ledge, recoveries are way better too. And there's less good, meaty semi-spike moves with which to gimp people.

There was no need for both of those, AND a better ledge. Note how recoveries characteristically weak that mostly function the same as they did in melee/brawl are STILL pretty exploitable. (Falcon, Ganon, Wario, etc) But those that were either mid-tier or above recovery wise now pretty much get a free pass.

I think the ledge having less invincibility (still being grabbable from ridiculous areas but sweetspotting less often if too far) and recoveries in general being slower/more exploitable would've been better.

 

[Deleted member]

Edge hogging is something I never really enjoyed, however, to me the issue is the amount of invincibility at the ledge combined with air dodging being a thing. So off stage game with all of these defensive buffs compared to Melee hurts the off stage game a bit. The difficulty in landing some Meteor Smashes apply to this as well with the smaller hitboxes.

For me, though, I think just tweaking air dodge to where it can only activate once in mid-air would make off stage game much more viable.

 

[Kraetyz]

I like the new ledges. If people miss the old ones, Melee still has a big scene. ^^

 

[Piford]

It's not what I would want the ledges. I think some changes were good and others were bad. I think it's equally bad than ledge mechanics in past games. Even if it's not equally bad, I think that it's good that's its different.

 

[srn347]

Personally I feel the ledge mechanics have never been better. First of all, not to discredit edgehogging as taking skill or being beatable, but it seemed to artificially imbalance edgeguarding situations in favor of the edgehogger; similar to ZTD's and infinites, when it works there's usually nothing the opponent could have done about it. Regarding the lack of duplicable edge invincibility, I think we can all agree that planking was cheap (to the degree that we can agree a mechanic or technique can be "cheap") and we're better off without it existing. Finally, edge trumping seems to make off-stage fighting have more depth (and bairs), even if it does also prolong the fight.

 

[JSG]

Ledge trumping is still weird to me, but I can accept it. Though, what I accept more is the invincibility not being reset each time the ledge is regrabbed. Makes for some quick thinking.

Although, the fact that it's a bit too easy to sweet spot the ledge is kind of ridiculous. I like the sweet spots, but sometimes I see some characters still grabbing the ledge when they clearly looked like they were doomed.

 

[Diddy Kong]

The most indirect buff given to a character that needed it most. It truely makes the game more aggresive, and I like it that way. So I guess I'm Okay with it.

 

[Purin a.k.a. José]

It now makes off-stage edgeguarding much more varied and exciting, since you now have to worry about your position too. Ledge-stalling is less viable now, since the opponent gets vulnerable in a few frames and can be attacked with a bigger chance of success.

 

[otter]

I haven't played smash 4 since November so maybe they patched it, but trumping is botched because you can roll on reaction to AFTER being trumped. It's a useless mechanic.

Personally I feel the ledge mechanics have never been better. First of all, not to discredit edgehogging as taking skill or being beatable, but it seemed to artificially imbalance edgeguarding situations in favor of the edgehogger

That's literally the point of the game. Why make smash a ****ty version of street fighter?

 

[thehard]

I haven't played smash 4 since November so maybe they patched it, but trumping is botched because you can roll on reaction to AFTER being trumped. It's a useless mechanic.

Not at all. This roll can be baited or read and you can act quickly out of a failed trump while they're stuck in roll lag. It's nearly risk free to attempt a trump.

 

[Fluorescent]

The change drastically helped from recovering off the stage and along with all the improved defensive options (air-dodge, Uspecial) it REALLY makes the game a bit longer as simply holding the ledge is basically only another way to gimp someone other than being able stop their return to the stage by just holding on the ledge entirely.

But it was for the best. As some stated above, you would see the insight of all those stalling mechanics come back to place and in my opinion it would be better for this mechanic to stay even though I kinda have my own grudge against it.

 

[BSP]

The only major problem I have with ledges in Smash 4 is how little vulnerability normal getup has across the board. <2 frames or so? Come on, that's ridiculous. It should be the same vulnerability as a floored neutral getup IMO, so that someone that pulls off a hard read actually hits you.

The lack of edgehogging doesn't bother me that much because the non refreshing invincibility makes the ledge such a dangerous place to be...or it would if standing getup wasn't so safe.

 

[otter]

Not at all. This roll can be baited or read and you can act quickly out of a failed trump while they're stuck in roll lag. It's nearly risk free to attempt a trump.

only in the sense that positioning doesnt matter in the game, so putting yourself in a bad position for no reward isnt that bad.

Also, you cant trump and then punish a roll. not even close.

 

[DaRkJaWs]

Edge hogging is something I never really enjoyed, however, to me the issue is the amount of invincibility at the ledge combined with air dodging being a thing. So off stage game with all of these defensive buffs compared to Melee hurts the off stage game a bit. The difficulty in landing some Meteor Smashes apply to this as well with the smaller hitboxes.

For me, though, I think just tweaking air dodge to where it can only activate once in mid-air would make off stage game much more viable.

I agree that air dodging is annoying off stage. It's a bit too strong a defensive option. But I think the best answer to this is not to make it to where it can activate once, but to where you cannot activate it after your second jump.

 

[David Viran]

only in the sense that positioning doesnt matter in the game, so putting yourself in a bad position for no reward isnt that bad.

Also, you cant trump and then punish a roll. not even close.

Not unless you can tether trump.

 

[thehard]

only in the sense that positioning doesnt matter in the game, so putting yourself in a bad position for no reward isnt that bad.

Also, you cant trump and then punish a roll. not even close.

Not punish, but you can reset to neutral.

Positioning most certainly matters

 

[Zylach]

As a Zelda main, the new ledge mechanics are a godsend. Overall, I did think edgehogging was rather silly (and, yes, I did it myself because it was a very strong technique. I got a lot of flack from non-competitive friends when I did this). It's something I'll never miss. The lack of invincibility on ledge regrabs is a brilliant idea as others have said. Ledge stalling and planking were not cool. Regrabbing the ledge should be risky and punishable. I particularly enjoy when I regrab the ledge and barely escape getting punished for it because I know I should be punished for it. As for ledge trumping, this can sort-of be seen as a smarter replacement for edgehogging. Where edgehogging was a guaranteed kill whether it was intentional or accidental, ledge trumping can also end in a kill but that kill can't happen accidentally and requires more player interaction in order to lead to a kill meaning it asks more of the trumper than previous installments asked of ledgehoggers which is ultimately good. It keeps the game from becoming mindless. I do agree that the combination stronger recoveries, supermagnetic ledges, and lack of semi-spike moves is a bit much though because recovering for a lot of characters feels like it lacks risk. The ledge-guarder must either go offstage for a kill which is risky in and of itself (Plus airdodge mechanics make this difficult to pull off while most characters can still recover after airdodging successfully), hit the recoveree during that one frame of ledge snapping vulnerability which requires the edge guarder to be frame perfect (I guess multihit attacks nullify this a bit), or just let the recoveree freely grab the ledge and wait to punish their get-up options. I'd be fine with characters having the recovery power that we saw in brawl where downward deaths actually happened if a character was sent too far with low angled attacks (Now, even low angled attacks won't kill downwards on a lot of the cast). One of the characters that always catches me off guard is Captain Falcon who, I swear, has a ton more horizontal and vertical recovery on his up-B than he did in Brawl. Correct me if I'm wrong on this but downward angled attacks felt like they killed him much more frequently in brawl than they do now simply because he couldn't recover from them, not because they sent him to the blast zones.

 

[Solutionme]

I agree that air dodging is annoying off stage. It's a bit too strong a defensive option. But I think the best answer to this is not to make it to where it can activate once, but to where you cannot activate it after your second jump.

Speaking of air dodges, I had in my mind a more interesting mechanic for it, it wouldn't really do much offstage but on stage would make more of a last resort thing. Basically how I feel air dodges should have been nerfed was by increasing the air dodge landing lag the more you use it in the air, and the only way to reset it is by jumping. If you air dodge once in the air and land into the ground with the air dodge, you get your typical 22 frames, but for any other air dodge after that it would add to the frame lag by 10, that way you can't just madly mash the l button in an attempt to avoid all damage and not experience any landing lag because you're a floaty. So in the case you do land into the ground without being in the effect of an air dodge, you'd get no lag, however the twist is that if you use more than one air dodge in the air without landing into the ground under the air dodge animation, you'd get 5 frames of landing lag for each one, so your 2nd air dodge would give you 5 and then the third would add it up to 10 and so on. That way floaties would not get screwed over either, but they can't just madly spam air dodges and get away, and it would also help characters who have few active frames on certain moves to help punish more accordingly in the air. Also because of this, the offstage air dodging would be good since I personally feel the ledge game atm is perfect since it has the proper balance of defensive and offensive gameplay, actually now that i think about it, my method of changing air dodges would only affect one thing for air dodging off stage and that would be that you wouldn't try to recover on stage without grabbing the ledge when using air dodges.

Side note: Your suggestion is good but it would make characters with good jumps or range excel a little too much and stunt shorter range characters and characters with poor air speed and jumps tremendously, also I know you didn't specify but it wouldn't apply to every character since jiggly for example has 6 jumps, so doing that to her second jump would already make her weaker than she should be. It irritates me that jiggly has no strong kill throw, considering defensive play with shielding just stops her from getting the kill at all, which is bad design on Sakurai's part especially since she lacks most of her rest set-ups.

 

[DaRkJaWs]

I don't think it would hurt them too much. They just wouldn't jump until they are closer to the bottom or the stage, which is what most of them already do (luigi/Mario/captain falcon/ganondorf). Obviously jiggly puffs and others like chari zard are special cases that would be treated as such.

 

[otter]

Not punish, but you can reset to neutral.

Positioning most certainly matters

the best thing you can hope for while edgeguarding is resetting to neutral? Thats not the worst idea of all time?

 

[PUK]

the best thing you can hope for while edgeguarding is resetting to neutral? Thats not the worst idea of all time?

I think you're trying to use rhetoric to troll.
The best you can hope from edgeguarding is a kill. The worst is a death. Between the best and the worst there is some damage taken or given, and a reset to neutral.
And despite what you say, ledgetrump works, often, well, and at every level of competion, to the point of being a really good mecanic in practice. I even don't think you can avoid Ledgetrump by rollin or jumping, only by buffering a get up immediately after grabbing the ledge.
yep i think the shield and jump input are not taken in account until the 20f of lag end, while the get up input is.

 

[Raethien]

Although I really like Melee and Project M ledge mechanics, it only works in those games. The new ledge mechanics work well with smash 4, and adds more strategies for edge guarding.

 

[LightLV]

Do you want a Shiek that uses Vanish to ledge stall in melee or a planking Metaknight?

This issue would have been fixed with the ledge invincibility rules in smash 4 alone.

Ledge trumping is silly. Recovery was already easy. Blast zones are already far. It's just another mechanic to stack on the losing side to lower the length of your lead.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

This issue would have been fixed with the ledge invincibility rules in smash 4 alone.

Ledge trumping is silly. Recovery was already easy. Blast zones are already far. It's just another mechanic to stack on the losing side to lower the length of your lead.

Not entirely, but still it helps add more depth to the ledge.

Plus casuals hated it in every iteration of the game.

 

[LightLV]

Not entirely, but still it helps add more depth to the ledge.

Plus casuals hated it in every iteration of the game.

Not to say I liked edgehogging, but ledge trumping alongside hilarious ledgesnap range just makes guarding the edge feel way more slanted to the recoverer than the person who has to risk his life to stop you from coming back.

These days I just take my chances with the 2-frame vulnerability and try to guess your roll. It's just not worth it for most characters.

 

[Kangaexe]

The new ledge mechanics mean for a more friendly game. A good player could get on FG or FF and abuse the ledge mechanics against people who dont understand them. Im 100% sure it was added to make the game more accessible