Who are the characters that suffer from game design oversight?

[Deleted member]

Mainly the glitchy characters will suffer from game design oversight.
Wario, though, not only has to deal with some glitches, but also from the grab release once again. It seems as though this wasn't taken into consideration when they were balancing him...

 

[ferioku]

This is a bit late, but whatever. Toon Link is fine. It's the playstyle that defines the character, not the moveset. Toon Link is a lot more suited to campish strategies with his projectiles, whereas Link will usually just want to get up close. While TL being decloned could have been really cool, I don't think it was necessary. And most tournaments don't use items, so the Final Smashes aren't really important to a lot of people.

But Leaf Shield kind of sucks. I'm not sure how it wasn't removed after testing .

I beg to differ, Toon Link is definitely more fast paced and has more safer approaches, although link is faster than previous iteration of smash, Toon Link is still a lot faster and has more combo potential.

 

[LinkNIvy]

Guys, I'm not talking about your opinions on clone characters, I'm talking about flawed mechanics in a character's moveset or movement options. Ganondorf may still be a clone, but what matters for discussion is whether he has broken or useless moves, etc.

Like Melee G&W, most of his aerials are non L-cancellable for some reason despite every other character being able to L-cancel. These are the kind of things I'm talking about.

Isn't L canceling gone in Smash 4

 

[Gatoray]

Isn't L canceling gone in Smash 4

I didn't say L-cancelling was in Smash 4, I was giving an example in the context of Melee.

 

[Putuk]

Mega Man is clearly the biggest offender as his Metal Blades don't one-shot everything.
What's up with that?

 

[rabbit.soaring]

I beg to differ, Toon Link is definitely more fast paced and has more safer approaches, although link is faster than previous iteration of smash, Toon Link is still a lot faster and has more combo potential.

Sorry, I was just assuming SSB4 Toon Link was like Brawl TL. But I still think he's one of the more viable projectile camp characters because of quickdraw, multiple projectile options. Hero's Bow charges faster now, too (According to ssbwiki).

 

[Gidy]

Mega Man. To make the pellets seamless, he had to use the pellets for Mega Man's n-air, f-tilt, and jab. The pellets are already not that great, but the mere fact that they take up three of his potential moves is disturbing to say the least.

Leaf Shield is also worthless, I thought it would work similarly to how... well similar moves worked. However, it does not. It is not a good shield, it is not a good pressure tool, and you cannot act out of it unless you grab the opponent.

For a projectile character, his projectiles are really repugnant. The side-special can be blocked after it actually connects, or it could be passed back to Mega Man becoming a detriment to himself. The neutral projectile can be caught by the enemy... that is bad design, obviously.

I am not sure about his KO moves because I do not play him a lot. But his up-tilt has a ton of ending lag. If you whiff is up-smash or down-smash, you are extremely vulnerable.

Overall, I am not too fond of him.

I feel that the leaf shield is good for footstooling or grabbing so the leafs hurt too. The pellets aren't too great, I agree. But if you jump and use them they can knock the opponent back and you have a chance to hit them with the remaining 1-2 pellets.

I am not too fond of the situation the crash bombs set Megaman in but the metal blades are good, IMO as you can bladedash, throw them Norteast, Southeast, Southwest, and Northwest for altercations in approaches, and knockback for follow ups are real at high percentages. Plus he can Rush Cancel and his back air is a KO move.

But I've got to say Wario and Ganondorf. Ganon is still the same but has more power on his moves, if you can actually hit with them. Wario has hos momentum glitch and his grab release glitch (I made a thread about it in the Wario sub forum, if any of you are interested)

 

[betafader]

Hmm...If I had to point out a few of the worst offenders (in my opinion of course) than I would definitely choose Palutena, Mii Fighters, Little Mac, and Shulk.

As a disclaimer, I openly admit that I have not played these characters at all. This is all analysis, and is open to criticism within reason.

Palutena:
To start with Palutena, she was a character revealed to us as the "jack-of-all-trades" kinda gal, and that was cool. She had a move for just about every situation and they all completely differed in functionality. She was literally the official (by that I mean non "create a character" style such as with Mii Fighters) character that could do it all. That is until it was revealed that ALL custom moves were banned from online play. Meaning that a good 8 of her possible moves, each with a different functionality and each being a possible crucial asset to a player whom might main Palutena in the future, just went flying out the window. They kinda just gave her a cool gimmick that probably took a lot of hours to work on, and then they just threw it away. Sad.

Fighters:
Mii Fighters suffer from this same problem. Nice gimmick, probably took a lot of hours to implement, got many players hyped, then got the boot from the main mode that mattered, but wait there's more. They also unfortunately suffer from what I like to call, "Doing way too much" syndrome. What I mean is they have too many option for customization that they may never see official tournament play because of their weight, height, power attribute thing. I personally find it weird that they were advertise as "anyone can join the fight" but not with "anyone" if you know what I mean.

Mac:
And then comes Little Mac, the scourge of the grounded plains! Enemy to all land-walkers! Master of the fist! ...why is this guy SO bad in the air? I understand the idea they were working with, and in all honesty it was a good one. We have Jigglypuff whom is queen of the sky, but not much of a threat on the land. However unlike Mac, the degree of her limitation do not contradict with the format of the game. Smash Bros in general is a platform combat game. Platform meaning, your...behind will be seeing a lot of airtime if you play this game, and as much as I like Mac's design, I think they went a little too overboard with his limits. I wish I could point out one specific problem he has when in the air but I can't because all his options in the air are completely horrid. His aerials are 'meh', his recovery is a joke, and anti-air ain't the greatest. On the flip side we have Puff whom can "wall-of-pain" off the stage and camp in the air, but can also rely on her powerful smashes and decent tilt (mostly up-tilt) when shes on land. To be completely honest, I hope Nintendo releases a patch that gives the man at least a decent recovery (he can keep his aerials the way they are but the man needs to be able to recover!). There isn't too much worse than seeing someone lose because they got thrown off the stage at 20% and died because...Little Mac.

Shulk:
Now Shulk is a mixed basket. I haven't seen much of him but what I have seen of him has left me unimpressed. I feel that his Monado Stance ability is a very good gimmick for a character, especially a swords man, to have. Unfortunately, just as with Mac, I feel they gave him something really good but took something more important away. That something being flow, and Shulk just doesn't look like he has much. Now this is all an opinion from videos of other players but from what I've seen it seems as though Shulk was built with too much balance in mind. To explain, I feel as though the dev team designed Shulk as a below average character in hopes that his Monado Stance would give him the edge he needed to be above average, and that does not seem like the case. He looks much to sluggish for a character of his weight class (weight of captain falcon but moves like Ike with way less power), his natural speed is okay, his air-game is decent and his Monado just doesn't do as much as what may have been hoped for. Not to say that the Monados do nothing, they do help but the fact that they are one at a time use with a time limit and they each come with a counter effect just don't help balance his flaws. To put it in better perspective, take Kirby when he absorbs Shulk and gains the Monados Stances. Yeah they help boost Kirby's power for a good time and make you feel like you really are getting a benefit with a fair drawback, but when the effects go away you still feel like you are playing a solid character not a character that NEEDS that ability to be solid. In other words he shouldn't have to rely on his gimmick to be a decent character. He should be a decent character that has a gimmick that makes him good...for a limited time only.

As a side note I also think "Back-Slash" would be better as forward Smash. It could keep the added effect when hitting a player from behind and it would free his side-B for something that gives him a little....more.

TLDR: Reading is important for the mind.

 

[Tailisu10]

Palutena:
To start with Palutena, she was a character revealed to us as the "jack-of-all-trades" kinda gal, and that was cool. She had a move for just about every situation and they all completely differed in functionality. She was literally the official (by that I mean non "create a character" style such as with Mii Fighters) character that could do it all. That is until it was revealed that ALL custom moves were banned from online play.

Fighters:
Mii Fighters suffer from this same problem. Nice gimmick, probably took a lot of hours to implement, got many players hyped, then got the boot from the main mode that mattered.

They are only banned on randoms online.

 

[rabbit.soaring]

They are only banned on randoms online.

^^
@ betafader - I get what you're saying with Palutena being able to do a bit of everything, but I kinda like her current zoning playstyle, and I think Warp will be better than any of her custom up specials, just because it's nonlinear recovery and has nice utility, especially on stages with platforms.

 

[ScubaGoomba]

Shulk:
Now Shulk is a mixed basket. I haven't seen much of him but what I have seen of him has left me unimpressed. I feel that his Monado Stance ability is a very good gimmick for a character, especially a swords man, to have. Unfortunately, just as with Mac, I feel they gave him something really good but took something more important away. That something being flow, and Shulk just doesn't look like he has much. Now this is all an opinion from videos of other players but from what I've seen it seems as though Shulk was built with too much balance in mind. To explain, I feel as though the dev team designed Shulk as a below average character in hopes that his Monado Stance would give him the edge he needed to be above average, and that does not seem like the case. He looks much to sluggish for a character of his weight class (weight of captain falcon but moves like Ike with way less power), his natural speed is okay, his air-game is decent and his Monado just doesn't do as much as what may have been hoped for. Not to say that the Monados do nothing, they do help but the fact that they are one at a time use with a time limit and they each come with a counter effect just don't help balance his flaws. To put it in better perspective, take Kirby when he absorbs Shulk and gains the Monados Stances. Yeah they help boost Kirby's power for a good time and make you feel like you really are getting a benefit with a fair drawback, but when the effects go away you still feel like you are playing a solid character not a character that NEEDS that ability to be solid. In other words he shouldn't have to rely on his gimmick to be a decent character. He should be a decent character that has a gimmick that makes him good...for a limited time only.

I think the "flow" aspect with Shulk is probably just related to the game being new. I'm sure players will develop a rhythm with him as the meta evolves. I do agree on the points, specifically with regards to Palutena and Mii Fighters.

 

[Robertman2]

robin, rosalina and lucina. they are playable in smash; pretty big design flaw.

Sill salty about no Chrom?
Anyways, Yoshi's glitches are the only major thing I can think of.

 

[Carrill]

Ganondorf, yes. Peach too. They reworked ZSS's Final Smash from being the worse to one of the best, and look at Peaches; it's the same crappy Final Smash, Yes, no one is gonna use Final Smashes, but still kinda weird.

As a Peach main, I'd say that her Final Smash is actually decent. I've used it in a couple of For Fun matches and it's worked well for me. The damage has been nerfed but in other ways, it's been buffed... like it's ability to trap foes in the air. Even if the enemy jumps, they'll still fall asleep if they're close enough. And if the damage is high enough, it means a free kill. If it's not, then you can use the opportunity to heal 25% damage per peach. It's really not that bad.

 

[ChikoLad]

Although I feel I am good with Mega Man, Leaf Shield definitely needs a buff. It's uses are way too limited, and it's pretty much completely useless in 1v1. The pellets could use an upgrade too.

Side Special is fine though, it's incredible for mind games. And the Metal Blade is good enough. Could be better but I still frequently use it.

Rosalina, on the other hand, might be a little bit broken. Not because of Luma, but because of her down special. It's useless against characters without projectiles, yes, but lots of characters do have projectiles, and this move renders them useless and she can easily counter oncoming approaches that come after the projectiles since the move can be acted out of so quickly.

Also, it has insane effects on Pikachu's Thunder, and Robin's fully charged neutral B. It can also eat Villager's Tree and Bowling Ball. The former two seem like they could be reprogrammed to be less broken when countered by Rosalina's down special, even if I do love using the move like that.

 

[popsofctown]

I would say Villager has some design oversight issues. I feel like they tested the tree, but they didn't really test integrating the tree into part of another strategy, so it's kind of useless (the overly narrow tolerance for watering it from far away is one issue). A lot of Villagers moves just don't have the shieldstun or power they deserve, like slingshot. Downsmash seems likes it was tested on cpus or something.

That's the kind of stuff you wanted right?

I feel like a lot of villager's things don't seem to be working the way they're -supposed- to.