Was the Ness nerf intentional?

[The_NZA]

Hey all, maybe this should go to the character specific topic but I think this was probably a mistake (and if it wasn't, I think Ness players need some sort of explanation). As many of you know, in Melee if Ness absorbed a projectile successfully, he would be put into a stun state where he wouldn't be able to drop the magnet (and would be punishable). One of the Brawl/PM features of Psi magnet is that, upon absorb you can instant roll/dodge/jump by just hitting the analog stick in a direction. This made absorbing projectiles and not getting punished actually possible. However, in 2.5b you still could not absorb projectiles in the air and instant jump out (you had "absorption stun" like in Melee).

In earlier versions of 2.6, it was reported that 2.6 allowed Ness to cancel aerial absorption stun into a jump just like he could on the ground. However, what I'm hearing from the Ness board (I have admittedly not tested it myself), this change has been repealed. But on top of that, the psi magnet has been nerfed back to Melee levels (you can no longer interrupt a successful absorption into an instant roll/jump/spot dodge). Why did the PMBR a. do away with the aerial psimagnet buff, and b. nerf the magnet from Brawl levels back to Melee levels?

 

[Burnsy]

My guess is grounded Ness magnet was always meant to have absorption lag. This change makes it more consistent with other absorption moves. Lucas could also jump out of his grounded and aerial absorption in Brawl but this feature was taken away in PM.

It is curious that they want this specific mechanic to match Melee. You would think that giving characters a much safer way to approach lasering spacies would be something worth investigating.

 

[The_NZA]

You sure lucas couldn't jump/roll out of magnet absorption in 2.5?

 

[Burnsy]

I'm positive. I played a Zard once who trolled me by intentionally trying to make my magnet absorb his flame breath, since he could just keep B pressed down and I was basically softlocked in place. Buffering rolls did nothing.

You could time someone out like that. It's kinda ****ed up.

 

[StarshipGroove]

I'm trying my hardest not to say "because Melee"

****, I said it.

 

[Burnsy]

I asked about this and was told that not having lag would mean that his absorb is without commitment and that would be bad design. Which makes sense, but I'd still like to see it in action just to be sure.

It seems like an easy fix for the softlock side-effect would be to make it so that after a long time their flame breath completely 100% dies out. Unless there is some reason I am overlooking that this would make the move suck for them.

 

[The_NZA]

That's really dumb design to me. If you reflect an attack, you wont get punished because the projectile will hit the user where as absorb offers you no such protection. It already has a "tradeoff" in the sense that your only options after absorbing is Ness's slow jump, or roll, or spot dodge (or I guess JCusmash). Seems like that's tradeoff aplenty in a game where combos can deal quite the damage.

Can someone tell me the tradeoff of shorthop laser? Or jumping out of shine? This seems like an insanely dumb concept of design that doesn't have consistency through the smash universe.

This was also something no one was complaining about in 2.5. In fact, ness players were begging for the ability to jump out of absorb in the air (the downside there is if you choose to aerial absorb and jumpout, you are up in the air without a jump).

 

[ItalianStallion]

I agree that this seems like a good idea for Ness. Ness is good, but giving him small tools like the ability to act out of absorption will make him better without breaking him at all. And it seems weird to be hesitant about enacting changes like this when Spacies have stuff so much better than it.

 

[E_Tap]

That's really dumb design to me. If you reflect an attack, you wont get punished because the projectile will hit the user

If you're using projectiles against a character with a reflect, getting hit by a reflected projectile is not a guarantee but a fault of the attacker not approaching correctly or using unsafe-on-reflect projectiles (if that's even a category).

In the meantime, that "some sort of explanation" you feel you deserve is still underway in the form of the 2.6 changelog the staff here have been graciously asking everyone to patiently wait for the finished draft of changes instead of flying off the handle for any and every perceived nerf players think they're the victim of.

And yes, this definitely should go to the character specific board. Again.

 

[Malart]

@peeps complaining ^this, one trillion times.
I'd like it if Lucas could jump out of his magnet too, since unlike Ness, Lucas has to manually intercept projectiles, whereas Ness's magnet covers his entire body, with a tradeoff in attack range. Still, they both have a lot of other options, Ness with his insane aerial kill moves, and Lucas with his insane combos (and now sweet spikes and drill shine) This only seems to be much of a problem if you magnet too much, and it gives opponents the option of punishing an already insanely fast move.

Also, I'd like to point out, seeing as the magnet is just another form of shine, that they share this trait with falco, wolf, and fox, who can't jump out of a reflected projectile. Reflected projectiles can be powershielded right back if the spacie over-reflects stuff and you wait for it. As a tradeoff, reflector's don't heal you, have less range than the magnet as an attack.

Lucas can do sick momentum altering stuff with his B-reversal PK-Freeze + magnet, like going all the way under FD/literally any stage that's free-floating and catching the other legde. I have videos up on youtube of me doing it just to screw around. He can also chase opponents for an off the stage kill extremely fast with this trick. Ness got an angle change to his aerial PK Fire that makes it a much more useful approach than it was.

I'm gonna hold off judgement until they release the changelist and I see what all got altered/tweaked, but it makes sense to me. Being able to jump out of it regardless seems like a little too much freedom, and with good timing, would effectively render energy projectiles less than useless against top players.

 

[leelue]

It shouldn't matter if a character is good or not, a well designed character shouldn't be able to do certain things.

Completely invalidating something as rudimentary as another character's projectile is one of those things, which is what a lagless absorption move would do.

 

[KingBlaze777]

@Leelue Not all projectiles are invalidated by Magnet (see: Sheik, Link, Tink, Peach, ROB gyro, Snake) while Shine invalidates any and every projectile that made contact with it.

 

[Bryonato]

I'm biased as a ness main but i really feel it was a tool that didn't need to be taken away from him. If you can't jc out that's fine but if you're in a completely frozen state that is way too much commitment for using the move as it is intended. Most of the time you will just be punished for it afterward if the opponent has any sort of respectable running speed which most of the energy based projectile users do

 

[Problem2]

It shouldn't matter if a character is good or not, a well designed character shouldn't be able to do certain things.

Completely invalidating something as rudimentary as another character's projectile is one of those things, which is what a lagless absorption move would do.

Letting Ness roll out of it would allow him to risk absorbing the projectile and allow some sort of escape that is not super free movement. A player firing the energy attack could purposely throw one out to get a chance at reading the roll. Jumping out of it or spot dodging might be too much, but I think keeping the roll would be balanced. He would have to commit to doing the ground version in the first place in order to roll, which a energy firing character could get around by only committing in the air. Also, Ness's air version follows his momentum, so the Ness player has options to retreat and absorb, and let his retreat carry him slightly further away from his opponent as he heals.

 

[a vehicle]

Y'all forget that Fox and Wolf, like Lucas and Ness, can't jump or roll out of shine if it bounces a projectile back.
So far the only character that is free to do as he pleases is Falco. (And the reason why Falco only is unknown to me, as far as I know he couldn't do that in melee)

Let's compare the Pros and Cons between Absorbing a projectile (Ness & Lucas) and Countering a hit (Marth & Ike)
I'm NOT considering magnet's "shine" capacities because it's not the topic of discussion.

Absorb
Pros:
-Lowers Percent
-Negates Damage
-Easily cancellable in case nothing is absorbed
Cons:
-Has a lag to it
-Only useful against some missiles
-No harm is done to the opponent

Counter
Pros:
-Negates Damage
-Deals Damage to nearby opponents
-Knocks back nearby opponents
-Blocks anything
Cons:
-Has a lag to it
-Can't be cancelled

Spoiler

Falco's Shine
Pros:
-Negates Damage
-Bounces back damage and knockback
-Works on any projectile
-Cancellable at any given moment
-Has no lag
Cons:
-none

My point is that absorbing something leaves you so vulnerable that the damage reduced might be way lower than the damage you're about to receive from punishment.

 

[standardtoaster]

falco is able to jump out of reflecting a projectile in pm because of the way we coded in his melee shine. it is currently not possible to remove the jump cancel on reflecting

 

[KingBlaze777]

falco is able to jump out of reflecting a projectile in pm because of the way we coded in his melee shine. it is currently not possible to remove the jump cancel on reflecting

Codewise: Are Fox's and Falco's shines different? If not, then just code them the same way and adjust hitbox properties accordingly (I think you may have tried this but then again, you may have not), but if there is a significant difference then ignore this

 

[standardtoaster]

There is a significant difference in how they are coded. Remember, falco threw the reflector in brawl.

 

[Burnsy]

That's really unfortunate about Falco. He is way too lucky, getting unintended buffs like that.

 

[leelue]

and he can gatling combo

 

[Kink-Link5]

What the **** is gatling combo

He could always pew pew pew

 

[MonkUnit]

gatling combo is doing a dacus where the dash attack hits and links into the usmash

 

[Kink-Link5]

****ing brawl names

 

[Juushichi]

I actually thought that Gatling Combo was a pretty well-done name.

 

[Kink-Link5]

What is gatling about canceling a move into another? Those are generally known as chain combos in most games.

 

[CORY]

when i first learned the concept in guilty gear, they call it gatling comboes.

 

[The_NZA]

Completely invalidating something as rudimentary as another character's projectile is one of those things, which is what a lagless absorption move would do.

Now if that isn't an exaggeration, I don't know what is. By the end of PM, there will be 29 characters with projectiles. Ness's magnet works against 12 of them (that includes bowser and charizard's flame breath). Being forced to roll/jump/spot dodge out of a projectile absorb does not make it "lagless". As others have already pointed out, it actually commits you to an option that is punishable. For example, one difficult approach for Ness to deal with is a mario jumping and fireballing as a combo starter. With the 2.5 design, ness could spot dodge it and still eat a down smash if mario read it right, roll forward and get hit with a backwards forward smash from mario, or roll away and lose ground to be aggressive (and ground is so important when you have those stubby arms and range).

The current psi magnet can only be used for its absorb powers in a campy and defensive way. At least in 2.5, it allowed Ness to get in aggressively. I don't know why anyone would favor the former play style.

 

[leelue]

There are 2 problems with your argument.
One, you act like 12 (or even 10, or 9 or 8 or whatever) characters is a perfectly fine number of characters to go "don't ever use this move you've probably been designed around". That's silly.

Second, being able to roll, jump or spot dodge doesn't commit you to an option that's punishable. Has anybody else ever called a jump cancelable move punishable? Ever? Not to mention it's on a character with a djc? The fact that your examples covered the 3 massively inferior options is telling.

 

[The_NZA]

Your claim, as I understand it, is Ness's magnet from 2.5 was so a good, Ness never squared off against an energy projectile. He invalidated them 100%.

I don't know if this is a universal experience, but I still got SH lasered by Falco (maybe i'm bad). I believe that happened for two reasons:

1) Falco has the toolset to predict and punish the response. If you spot dodge, Falco can smash you. If you roll back, falco can sh nair. If you roll towards, he can fsmash you. The other option is Ness jumping.

your response was "Has anybody else ever called a jump cancelable move punishable?".
But here's the thing––you are focusing on moves in a vaccum rather than the characters they are tacked on. For instance, most people think of spacies when they think of jump cancelable moves. Spacies have fast jumps that make it so when they jump cancel a shine, there is no punish to be had. Go ahead and pick Ness and see how vulnerable he is jumping out of magnet during the actual jump. You can argue from there that he can DJC an attack to make it fast and nonpunishable, but if you take a moment to look on Ness's range on everything besides fair, I don't think it would be hard for a falco to just straight nair/dair him out of that option either.

But for the sake of argument, lets stop talking about Falco. I think Fox, Wolf, Mario, Lucas, Luigi, Pikachu, and ZSS can all punish it. The only one I can't speak for are Samus (because we don't know), Ness, and ROB (because I know nothing about him, really). I would hardly call ROB's laser or Ness's pkfire "the move [they]'ve probably been designed around." And Ness v Ness is a mirror anyways.


2) The other idea I would bring about is that during absorb you have a bunch of defensive options like rolling, but when you are not in absorb (but have the magnet up) you are vulnerable. The magnet actually has a good deal of startup (that's why it can't be used as effortlessly as a shine). That means there is a certain guessing game with your opponent which actually also helps balance the move. I might pop up my magnet because I think you are going to SHL me but instead you can just dair me. That helps to balance it because even if a projectile may be hard for the aggressor to punish on absorb, the aggressor has a free hit when the absorb is not successful. That brings up a MUCH more interesting depth in gameplay which requires the energy character to actually play the matchup, and mix up close range projectile use with close range aggression rather than using the domination of a projectile to mold the game to their perfect liking.


3) You shouldn't compare reflectors and absorbers like they are the same thing. Ness's absorber already has several weaknesses that the other shines do not have. For example, absorber has quite a bit more startup than shine (thats why people don't use magnets to punish shield grabs). Shine offers protection in the form of sending a projectile back at the opponent which may hit them at best or at worst force them to dodge it rather than just punching you in the face. In 2.6, the only two successful ways to use magnet as an absorber is from far away, or close up and getting hit in the face. That means if I absorb a fireball and get back 18% (made up number) and I get dsmashed by mario and accrue 17%, that's me DOING IT RIGHT. That's seriously lame. Just because Fox/Falco can't roll out of shine reflect doesn't mean Ness shouldn't be able to because they are different characters with different moves. (Continued in next post)

 

[Kink-Link5]

Going to stand behind NZA on this one. Ness can be very easily grabbed out of jumping as a fairly assured answer to any of his aerial options. From DJC to Fullhop nair, the worst risk an opponent has using a grab is that they grabarmor through a nair. In particularly rare cases, Ness's option to do JC grab on his own requires him to initiate the grab preemptively, to beat the opponent's. The opponent, on the other hand, doesn't have to grab before Ness starts his jump to beat him out. It's a situation that is only dissonant by about three or so frames, but its a window (That can not be intentionally abused, mind you) that means Ness is at more of a risk/less advantaged position than his opponent, and it happens not all, but most of the times when Ness is in a position to jump.

Ness's jump shenanigans work by the power of persuasion and misdirection; his double jump cancel creates the kind of slight delay that throws people off from what is happening, and his bair has a similar, just barely noticeable delay right before it hits that works off an understanding of the expectations people have when the opponent is in the air.

But, as with 2.1 Sonic, a lot of what seem to be gr8 b8s m8 can be beaten by just ignoring them, rather than trying to read them. Grabs with respectable range keep a lot of Ness's non-conventional mechanics in check and force him to adapt to using more traditional fundamentals, at least until he can hopefully gain the momentum necessary to get inside his opponent's head. Ness essentially HAS to make the opponent play the game how he wants, or he else loses the 1on1 in basic game mechanics.

Call them gimmicks if you want, but they are needed in order for a character like Ness -- that is, a character intentionally designed to not have fundamental strengths -- to do well.

 

[The_NZA]

Continued...
4) The final argument: it comes down to what you want in play styles. It is well known that Ness has trouble asserting stage control and using projectiles is by and large one of the most important ways to exert stage control. Ness lacks range, even in his PK fire. While his aerials are wicked fast, he himself is not particularly speedy to constantly be threatening damage to your face like a Fox, Pikachu, Falco, or Shiek. The point: Ness can't exert stage control.

The magnet gives him a way to approach projectiles safely, or force the opponents to approach him. He makes their stage control worse allowing his best attributes to shine. I think that's good design, and it makes for more aggressive games with greater levels of interaction/opportunities to punish. However, in 2.6 just like melee, you will never see a Ness use a magnet at close range. Why would you? You will 100% get hit afterwards, and it's not "rest". It will not pay for itself in those situations. I guess you could increase the multiplier on absorb to make it pay for itself but NO ONE wants that because fundamentally, it feels wrong to absorb a projectile, get smashed, and then celebrate that you ended up on top in the percentage math.

The idea that this move needed a nerf stems from, IMO, a bad approach to game design that focuses on the balance of individual moves rather than the characters those moves are attached to. You can focus on absorb and argue "a well designed character shouldn't be able to do certain things", but what happens when you use this approach to moves like Quickdraw or Pikachu's usmash? Should a character really be able to have a burst of speed with a ton of cancelable options out of it with practically few negatives? Should there really be a smash move in this game that is 5 frames long and is also one of the most poweful usmashes? The answer is undoubtedly "If you tack that move on any character, it could be really bad for the game." But you aren't tacking it on to anyone––you are tacking it on to pikachu and on to ike, and for those characters the move makes sense. That same "character driven" approach to analyzing the strength of moves should be employed here and if you do that, i think you will find that the Magnet didn't need to be nerfed. If anything, the earlier version of 2.6 magnet was optimal that slightly buffed it.

 

[leelue]

I apologize and I mean no disrespect, but a certain king of bubbas has made it physically impossible for me to read large hunks of text. I really don't know how to make my apology sound more sincere.

I did manage to catch the think about Ike's quickdraw, and I have always called it "Options: The Move" out of distaste.

 

[The_NZA]

I wrote a lot, and I appreciate it if you would take time to read it if you are interested in this topic. If not, I understand that too (we have real lives as well). But I will say this––I think Ike's quickdraw is good for the game, and I feel like that with Pikachu's usmash. In the same vein, I think magnet is good for the game ON ness. It might be a bad move if it was on...say Fox, or some other character with range and a fast jump. But I don't feel like that in this case.

 

[ItalianStallion]

I'm completely with The_NZA, especially when it comes to the point about moves that seem bad for the game, being good for certain characters. It's like a similar debate I had about G&W being able to act out of Up-B. The argument against it was that being able to act out of Up-B, was essentially against the design of smash (Recovery moves putting you in a bad position). My point was that I really didn't see what the problem was if it wasn't breaking the character. Anything that makes the game more varied and interesting, without breaking it, is welcome to me. Things like G&W acting out of UP-B gives him the ability to extend his combos and threaten the skies in a way he never could before. That kind of design encourages offense and dynamic play (Something we all enjoy about Melee). I would agree that Ness getting his absorption back to 2.5 levels is indeed this kind of good design. It encourages interesting interaction and more offensive play. Magnet isn't a fast enough move and Ness isn't a fast enough character to break magnet in the way some are fearing. And if some random Ness player breaks it down the road, then we could always fix it then.

 

[a vehicle]

There is a significant difference in how they are coded. Remember, falco threw the reflector in brawl.

It's a damn shame that technical limitations are blocking the way towards balance, I really hope there aren't many iterations of this particular issue, considering so many characters had their moves completely overwritten.

EDIT: read NZA's wall of text

Man you have some flawless logic right there, you pretty much affirmed my current overview of Ness (un)viability and also exposed some other weakness that I completely agree with.
If I were powerful enough to tweak this somehow I would completely remove Ness's lag after absorb but diminish it's percentage reduction. I would also consider making magnet's hitbox a bit bigger, but I would have to test that.

 

[Shimesaba]

Calabrel mentioned on Reddit that this change was put in to compensate for a (as of 2.6) decrease in the number of frames that Ness is locked in place on a successful grounded or aerial absorption. Someone needs to call up M2K and have him count the frames...

 

[Deleted member]

Compensate? As in, they thought he would have been too good with both things, so one was taken away for the other? I find that hard to believe considering Ness is so ehh.

 

[Bryonato]

Calabrel mentioned on Reddit that this change was put in to compensate for a (as of 2.6) decrease in the number of frames that Ness is locked in place on a successful grounded or aerial absorption. Someone needs to call up M2K and have him count the frames...

boy ness would sure be OP if that wasn't compensated for.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Ooh ooh, can I get in on the contemptuous and sardonic passive-aggressive comments?

I'm great at those.

Mmhmmhghhhhh



Charizard definitely needed the glide nerf. It isn't like there is a character with a better neutral game, better combo game, and better gimp game that got to keep one and a half glides he can jump and attack out of directly without having to cancel them first.

Or a character with an even better mechanic exclusive to her that allows her to use nigh-lagless aerials and recover from anywhere forever, attached to one of the only moves that completely invalidates crouch canceling as an option.

 

[9bit]

I need to make an image macro that I can use in these complaint threads that basically says "I play DDD" and it has like a disapproving face.