Why is online in this game so bad?

[Ze Diglett]

You can set Stamina as an option in Quickplay or arenas. I'd wager you'd have severe trouble finding someone wanting to play that though.

Yeah, and I honestly really wish it wasn't an option seeing how nobody plays it except to cheat GSP. I still remember a time I got matched into a 3-stock 300 HP Stamina match against a laggy Peach on Wrecking Crew with Smash Balls on (while looking for no item Stock Team Battles on Battlefield myself). It lasted forever and she abused both the lag and the healing from her FS to cheese out a win.
So yeah, quickplay's great.

 

[TheDuke54]

Move staling has gone no where online, but moves don't stay stale forever. Every 10th move pushes a move off the list, and that can potentially make a move less stale or unstale it completely if the last / only instance of it being used was the move that was just pushed off the staling list. Certain things also unstale moves that you wouldn't expect. For example, Greninja's substitute can unstale moves if you hit it before it disappears. Certain projectiles, while they themselves DO NOT get stale, will still push other moves off the staling list. This goes on.

So it's more likely you're just not used to how the system works yet, as when I get someone locked into a string of 2-3 UTilts with Ike after a NAir or something at low %'s, I can visibly watch the move do less % each hit. Training mode, however, has move staling OFF by default and I'm not sure if modes like Stamina Mode have move staling or not.

Speaking of Stamina, I wish they'd add it to online. It has zero competitive value because of how easy stuff like infinites can be when all moves are deadlocked into base knockback the whole match.. for example you can sometimes UTilt people 5+ times in a row, or indefinitely if it's at a good angle / near a wall or surface.. but it's fun. I'd love to hop on with Ken, Ryu or maybe Incineroar or Lucario and just do some fighting where stamina comes into play. Would be a good 'For Fun' option when you're just looking to play less seriously. I don't hate Stamina mode like a lot of people do.

Thanks for the info. I know that I'm not that good at Smash by any standard lol, but when I want to train it's kind of hard to with someone who is just trying to cheese to victory lol.

I ran into some stamina matches on quickplay. One of them had a handful of those blackhole balls drop and the weilder just clobbered everyone. I managed to win with 1% by countering them. But that was just a fluke. Stamina battles can be fun (for me, at least) if you know the opponents aren't just going to spam projectiles or easy damage builders.

 

[DelugeFGC]

You can set Stamina as an option in Quickplay or arenas. I'd wager you'd have severe trouble finding someone wanting to play that though.

I'm aware, and I've even found a few stamina games.. but not the kind I'm looking for. These were games with people straight up trying to cheese GSP via stamina mode like going for infinites on certain maps with certain characters and etc. I'm just looking for like 10-15 minutes of a break from straight up 8+ hour long stretches of serious practice and such by goofing off in Stamina mode with characters that are more naturally suited to fighting games like the ones I listed above. Spirit mode seemed to have the same idea with how all of its SF fights were Stamina based, but I want to play real people so.. yeah. I don't think Stamina or even Timed battles should be listed on quickplay / ranked at all, honestly.

Too many people trying to cheese GSP that way, for example a lot of my timed games at lower GSP back in the day would be someone playing a character like Ganon, going for ONE easy cheesy kill and then playing keep-away / stalling the rest of the match. You KO them? Well they're back on 100% full-force aggression, and if they kill you it's back to stalling. If it EVER goes to Sudden Death, these people will immediately try to cheese you out with something like Ganon's down B as soon as the match starts.. which is easy as hell to read and punish for the win yourself. Stamina mode was just people trying to lock me into infinites on Hyrule Temple or some **** like that most of the time. Due to the ranked nature of quickplay, Timed and Stamina modes need to GTFO and be put into a separate For Fun mode.

Not a huge deal, but it would be a nice way to enjoy the game without sweating all over my controller like normal.

 

[TheDuke54]

So guys I just ran into my first taunt party on Ult. It was me against two others who refused to attack the other. It wasn't even those taunt parties that if you don't attack they won't either. They just straight up rushed me and didn't bother with the other. I lost of course and when I did the other just stocked themselves.

Love how we can't report stuff like this or even block them now.

 

[DelugeFGC]

So guys I just ran into my first taunt party on Ult. It was me against two others who refused to attack the other. It wasn't even those taunt parties that if you don't attack they won't either. They just straight up rushed me and didn't bother with the other. I lost of course and when I did the other just stocked themselves.

Love how we can't report stuff like this or even block them now.

I get lots of Captain Falcon's spamming DTaunt that never throw out a single move unless it's a last minute Falcon Punch or something in Battle Arenas.

People are literally trolling to make the online experience worse, and we have zero tools to deal with it. I host 2-person limit BA's a lot just trying to find consistent 1v1's and these people will FLOCK when they see it, and the second I kick them, they come back. I'll have to kick the same guy like 10 times before someone else finally joins, but now I have PTSD and kick him on reflex anyway because I think it's the Falcon player still.

I'm about to just cut the cord to my LAN adapter and disable internet on my Switch entirely to remove all temptation to 'just hop on real quick to see' which always ends in me shutting the game off pissed. I'm DONE with this online, DONE. It's abysmal and in no way excusable from a company like Nintendo. I really hope come September or so this year, Nintendo notices a HUGE wave of people not renewing their Switch Online after the first year expires.. anything that doesn't hit them directly in the wallet is hopeless for enacting change at this point. They hear us, they just evidently don't care.. and that's REALLY demoralizing.

Finally, a game that is the perfect blend of new Smash and old Smash, that's packed with competitive viability, tech and all sorts of stuff.. and the online has been done up like it was an afterthought to a party game. I don't get the decisions here, I really don't. The competitive scene for Ultimate obviously isn't going anywhere, but it would've been great if for ONCE we could take that experience online, truly. Ultimate is the least 'casual' Smash game since Melee, and yet aspects like the online make it seem like Sakurai / Nintendo expected 100% of the audience to be casual players who wouldn't care about this **** (even though casual players don't like lag any more than we do, I know) and would eat up whatever they put out. I love Smash Ultimate, more than Melee or any other game in the series.. or game period.. and I feel like my love for this game is the only thing that's stopping me from putting it down for good on principle because of some of the terrible decisions made regarding it like online, just stopping out of sheer protest.. but I can't. I love this game, it's a part of me, and I take it seriously. So I'm stuck with the bad, laggy online and the trolls / cheesers infesting it.. weeeeeeeeeee.

 

[Ze Diglett]

I'm about to just cut the cord to my LAN adapter and disable internet on my Switch entirely to remove all temptation to 'just hop on real quick to see' which always ends in me shutting the game off pissed. I'm DONE with this online, DONE. It's abysmal and in no way excusable from a company like Nintendo. I really hope come September or so this year, Nintendo notices a HUGE wave of people not renewing their Switch Online after the first year expires.. anything that doesn't hit them directly in the wallet is hopeless for enacting change at this point. They hear us, they just evidently don't care.. and that's REALLY demoralizing.

Unfortunately, people will probably renew their subscriptions regardless since it's basically the only way to consistently play Smash with others unless you happen to live on a commune full of other Smash fans, so if nothing else, Smash fans will always pay for online, no matter how ****ty. Inelastic demand and all that; and even besides that, general Nintendo fans will probably rationalize it with "well, it's only $20" (which is about the best that can be said for this Online service even months after launch) and pay for it anyway. It really sucks, but it's true.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Unfortunately, people will probably renew their subscriptions regardless since it's basically the only way to consistently play Smash with others unless you happen to live on a commune full of other Smash fans, so if nothing else, Smash fans will always pay for online, no matter how ****ty. Inelastic demand and all that; and even besides that, general Nintendo fans will probably rationalize it with "well, it's only $20" (which is about the best that can be said for this Online service even months after launch) and pay for it anyway. It really sucks, but it's true.

Yeah but 100% of the Switch's userbase isn't entirely made up of Smashers, and plenty of people who aren't big into Smash would DEFINITELY miss the chance to renew this horrible online service.. especially with how things like NES Online have been going. Outside of people very into games like Smash, MHGU and Splatoon 2.. I don't see people being willing to keep paying for this garbage. Cloud saves don't even work for all games, the service as a complete package is a total joke.. and add in how little Nintendo seems to care about that experience? It may not be enough to make a dent, but I promise you, Nintendo is going to feel a burn in their wallet if they keep going at the rate they have been with the online on the Switch. It's atrocious, even outside of gaming.. the internet capability of the CONSOLE ITSELF is utter crap. Add in how cheap the dock is, the chintzy JoyCon's.. and as much as I adore the Switch, I am beginning to see how much of a cheap POS it is in some aspects.

Maybe it's a pipe dream, but I don't see people continuing to take this if things continue as they have been going. It's too much of an insult.

 

[TheDuke54]

The problem is that this isn't that well known. I found out by buying the game and going online. It's almost like Nintendo is finding ways to hide the terrible reviews so people eat it up and by then they already have the game and the sub for online. It's the same thing that happened with smash hell. No one knew it was a thing and it was seriously flawed and banned deplorable people and really friendly ones as well because some little tool was a wee bit too salty.

To make this more publicly know, we'd have to promote it more. And I think it is worthy of promoting. Not on the level of Fallout 76, that game is truly abysmal. And I'm so glad I saw the Amazon reviews before I bought it.

There's a lot of people who have yet to get a sub, my friends included. And I told them it was up to them whether they wanted to or not. And they all decided against it until Nintendo makes changes. I didn't mind all the annoying crap on Wii U or Brawl or any other system online by Nintendo because it was free. Now it's not. And yes $20 isn't a lot for a year, but when you realize that the online was better when we weren't paying, something isn't right.

I'm also an Animal Crossing fan and I shudder to think how they can make that online experience horrible.

 

[meleebrawler]

Maybe it's a pipe dream, but I don't see people continuing to take this if things continue as they have been going. It's too much of an insult.

It is, at least for expecting quality competitive play with randoms. There are just too many factors to control: no other fighting game has to deal with stage selection. And you can't just limit to one as that would favour certain characters. Even the bare minimum of Battlefield and Final Destination could leave a player salty if a bad stage for them pops and supposedly makes them lose a critical game. The only reason other fighting games don't have stuff like taunt parties is that it's literally impossible to pull in any situation with them; so the only real way to prevent it actually involves making the online even more limited and barebones.

Smash has, and always will, get the vast majority of it's sales from casual party-type players who have lots of friends to play locally with. It sold like this before people even considered playing these games competitively; what incentive does Nintendo have to go out of their way to cater to theri very specific and constantly shifting demands when it's not only near impossible, but also unprofitable? No matter who's making the decisions, Nintendo with fixed modes/stages or players with preferences, someone is going to be unhappy unless a mutual agreement is reached beforehand by players. That means stuff like Anther's if you don't have online friends of your own.

 

[TheDuke54]

Yes, but they should realize either before or by now that their online lobby is complete crap compared to Smash4. And even casual players will get annoyed if they want free for all and get a 1vs1 try hard. Like I did once. I wanted to mess around in all items free for all and it gave me 1vs1. I wasn't in the mood to do a serious battle.

Also, oh my god. Team battle is horrible online. At least on 4 they couldn't steal your stocks. I had all two of my stocks stolen by my crap teammate multiple times. And what is up with team battles never rotating the fighters. You always get the same team mate and same fighter. Regardless of if someone is there for parties or for competitive play, we all find that annoying. It gives me little incentive to fight them over again if you can't switch up the teams or fighters. Even if I find those guys pretty cool.

 

[Sucumbio]

1 stock stamina all dorf it goes so fast...

 

[Scottfrankd]

Unfortunately, people will probably renew their subscriptions regardless since it's basically the only way to consistently play Smash with others unless you happen to live on a commune full of other Smash fans, so if nothing else, Smash fans will always pay for online, no matter how ****ty. Inelastic demand and all that; and even besides that, general Nintendo fans will probably rationalize it with "well, it's only $20" (which is about the best that can be said for this Online service even months after launch) and pay for it anyway. It really sucks, but it's true.

I'm genuinely annoyed that, even if it is cheap, I'm now paying for this quality of online service. It's poor. I can accept it in certain games, but not in a fighter, especially when I'm then punished for 1. wanting to exit the game because it's like playing a slide show by being banned and 2. losing a battle because of input lag and poor frame rate not allowing me to perform, causing my 'rank' to decrease. Experiencing the game at the moment is punishment enough! I don't want to pay for Smash online if this is the quality I'm to expect, but I do use the online for other games and have no problem with it - I just don't want the devs and nintendo to think this is acceptable.

 

[ppxt]

I played online with teams, my teammate killed himself 3 times then took my stock and killed him self 2 more times using my stocks, then literally the next game im somehow dragged into a three player and both my opponents just team up on me and I cant do anything cause of the lag, and no way to report this behavior, ****ing ridiculous, no triple A game should have this bad of online, I dont wanna play 3 player, I want actual teammates of my skill level (I go to tourneys and do just fine)

 

[Noss92]

We can just hope for update 3.0....

 

[Coolboy]

GSP just makes alot of peeps play differently.. i am guilty of stalling in certain matches..but the thing is.. the GSP gives me no other choice..if you lose a match you get punished so bad that i try to avoid that from happening, if i just keep avoiding and stalling the last 20/10 seconds then i know i will win that match instead of dealing with a sudden death that i might lose ^^'' i don't find this a wrong mindset, but it's the GSP to blame

 

[Crazy Hand 2001]

Why is online play so bad? Because Nintendo knows they can simply not make any effort into improving it. Just look at Super Mario Party's disasterous online.

 

[DelugeFGC]

GSP just makes alot of peeps play differently.. i am guilty of stalling in certain matches..but the thing is.. the GSP gives me no other choice..if you lose a match you get punished so bad that i try to avoid that from happening, if i just keep avoiding and stalling the last 20/10 seconds then i know i will win that match instead of dealing with a sudden death that i might lose ^^'' i don't find this a wrong mindset, but it's the GSP to blame

GSP is a number with absolutely zero weight / value inside of the actual competitive spectrum, and past a certain point (once you've stuck with a character, gotten a solid ratio going and the system figures you out more, that is) GSP doesn't even behave that oddly anyway. Once I got up near (but not quite at) 4M, I noticed my GSP gains and losses tanked to around 1-5K on average unless I get several rematches deep, the match is a wild outlier overall or I play a character I don't normally use.

Go to a tournament and start stalling out matches frequently and see how popular it makes you. You're playing to win just the same, but it's generally viewed as trash, will get you booed and possibly even yellow carded. If you can't play through the match, don't play ranked / comps. Stalling IS a legal tactic.. to a point. There are various forms of stalling that have been outright banned, and nearly every legal stalling tactic I know if is still limited on how long you can do it. It's not a great tactic, if you can't stay in the game and keep playing your best and rely on that, you won't go far in the grand scheme because you rely on the timer and basically luck to win matches instead of your raw skill and mental acuity. The timer shouldn't be ending many of your games, period. The standard is still 7:00 I believe, and that's MORE than enough time to go through all three stocks of either player in a 1v1. This is just advice, I'm not trying to attack you. I used to think stalling was somewhat viable and sure it CAN be.. but situations where stalling is both viable AND smart to do? Rare as hell, you're almost always better just playing it through. It ALWAYS looks better to finish the match with a KO and win than to let the timer run out and win the match for you.. feels better too.

Just my two cents. GSP isn't making you do anything, period.. YOU are. GSP is an irrelevant number with zero actual weight. How much or how little you have is ultimately meaningless, even INSIDE the competitive scene of Smash. You could be #1 ranked in the world by GSP, and in reality not even be top 1,000 in terms of actual skill. This is why tournaments and such are where these issues get settled. Not online in a ranked system that was put together by an incompetent team of people who likely didn't care much in the first place. We're lucky enough we FINALLY got a very competitively viable Smash game since Melee, I know, but **** online is **** online and nothing serious is getting settled there for a variety of reasons. The online being bad / less than viable is simply one of MANY reasons for this.

GSP may not be the best way to rank people, far from it in fact, but at the end of the day it works WELL ENOUGH when you have a good ratio for it to base things off of to know where you stand in an ocean of thousands playing. Nobody is gonna get scouted by a team based off of GSP rankings alone, or likely period. As I stated, not only is the system somewhat flawed (but not as much as you make it out to be), but the overall-terrible online makes cheesing out more GSP a fairly easy thing to do in most situations. GSP is an accurate reflection of absolutely nothing, and likely will never be. If it DOES go anywhere, you're looking at at LEAST 3-4 months more of people playing before the ranks truly become accurate. It likely will never carry much weight due to the state of Ultimate's online, however, so you're really better off not worrying about it. It's not an accurate reflection of YOU or the person you're matched with in most situations, it's just a number that increases / decreases after the match. There are, literal gods of skill I'm sure, sitting at 15K GSP right now. Just the same, there are PLENTY of scrublords past the 3M range. GSP means.. nothing.

Regardless of how high or how low that number gets, it shouldn't influence how you play. You should play the same at 10K GSP or 10M GSP (if that's even possible).. because that number isn't an accurate reflection of skill. With the lag, rulesets and everything else.. getting easy GSP isn't hard NOR is it difficult for an otherwise skilled player to go on a losing streak early on and tank their GSP. GSP doesn't mean jack, and letting it influence your playstyle in such a scummy (sorry, honesty) way is entirely on YOU. I don't see why you'd be at a point where stalling was a viable option in the last 10-20 seconds of the matches when matches can go on for upwards of 10 minutes with 7 as the standard for most people. I'm not knocking you, it's a free world and you do you.. but honestly I wouldn't recommend relying on stalling. Even if it risks a loss, you aren't at a tournament or anything.. so what's the worst that could happen outside of you maybe losing and risking learning something new about WHY you died and how to avoid it? Just my thoughts.

The main issue I have with what you said is that your behavior is somehow related to GSP. Your behavior (whatever it may be) is related to YOU. Not an arbitrary number with ZERO weight to it.

 

[TheDuke54]

I played online with teams, my teammate killed himself 3 times then took my stock and killed him self 2 more times using my stocks, then literally the next game im somehow dragged into a three player and both my opponents just team up on me and I cant do anything cause of the lag, and no way to report this behavior, ****ing ridiculous, no triple A game should have this bad of online, I dont wanna play 3 player, I want actual teammates of my skill level (I go to tourneys and do just fine)

Dude this crap happens to me all the time on team battle. Team battle was my favorite thing to do on Smash 4. The team work, it was fun. This? You can't choose if you want to do competitive or fun. Both which I like.

But then you get the game throwing competitive and fun players together. I literally watched a Ganondorf on my team charge and down b himself to death twice and then take my stock before I even got any damage done to me. All in the beginning of the match. This isn't the only time this has happened. Next update needs to have some way to stop stock stealing. Maybe you have to agree to it. It IS YOUR STOCK AFTERALL.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Dude this crap happens to me all the time on team battle. Team battle was my favorite thing to do on Smash 4. The team work, it was fun. This? You can't choose if you want to do competitive or fun. Both which I like.

But then you get the game throwing competitive and fun players together. I literally watched a Ganondorf on my team charge and down b himself to death twice and then take my stock before I even got any damage done to me. All in the beginning of the match. This isn't the only time this has happened. Next update needs to have some way to stop stock stealing. Maybe you have to agree to it. It IS YOUR STOCK AFTERALL.

I'm just beginning to accept the online is screwed. It's WAY too messed up to have any one thing be individually fixed and make a difference, damned near the whole package is flawed here. It would take something approaching an entire rework from the ground up, or basically going through all the existing content / infrastructure and heavily modifying it.

Battle Arena's are the best we have, but are still kinda crap.. ALTHOUGH, I feel they're our best chance. There's way too many problems with Quickplay, but there's few enough with BA's that it COULD be salvaged. First off, cut this crap with spectator's making the game lag. There is no reason that if I'm in a 1v1 with two spectators and one has a bad connection.. we ALL suffer. I know it's P2P, but there's other ways to do this and this was just lazy and it causes horrid consequences. The fact you also have to exit the queue / line to spectate is.. lunacy, you should be able to dip in and out of spectating (AND changing characters, that is also stupid and should be fixed) without EVER having to leave the line or risking lagging out the game.

If they could get the BA's down to where people can spectate BOTH without lagging the match (if they have a bad connection themselves, granted) and without leaving the line.. and to where people can change characters on the fly? They'd be in a good spot. Perfect? Hell no, far from it, but if they could at least tweak a few little things like that, and maybe if a few firmware updates could knock the Switch into gear internet-wise.. Smash Ultimate online could be a pretty good experience PROVIDED you play set up in advance games with people you KNOW have a good connection. Being able to consistently play with and practice with my friends via the online is really all I truly WANT, and if they can fix Battle Arena's.. we can have that.

Quickplay is ****ed though, no saving that.

 

[TheDuke54]

Doesn't matter, for a company like Nintendo it's inexcusable. Especially cause they now hold their hands out and expect money for services that were better before. I just got put into a 3 free for all when I asked for team battle. The game lagged horribly at the start and I ended up losing two stocks due to suicide. Conveniently the lag stopped soon after I lost those two stocks...

I didn't bother to even try to fight, I just dropped my last stock once someone hit me (cause Nintendo is stupid and thinks they should ban me for two hours for something asinine.)

 

[Crazy Hand 2001]

Doesn't matter, for a company like Nintendo it's inexcusable. Especially cause they now hold their hands out and expect money for services that were better before. I just got put into a 3 free for all when I asked for team battle. The game lagged horribly at the start and I ended up losing two stocks due to suicide. Conveniently the lag stopped soon after I lost those two stocks...

I didn't bother to even try to fight, I just dropped my last stock once someone hit me (cause Nintendo is stupid and thinks they should ban me for two hours for something asinine.)

well what do you expect when people will fanboy over everything Nintendo does?

This is why I toldd everyone to boycott their online service. Because it's absolute ****.

 

[Coolboy]

the only thing that i hate about extreme lag (luckily i rarely deal with it) is that people seem to easily SD themselves... i remember as match where i played as Toon Link and other players were Bayonetta, Wario and another Bayonetta, probably there was lag for the Wario player and a Bayonetta player cause they kept accidently SDing (they did not SD on purpose cause they were trying to do things) it was 1 vs 1 in the first 20 seconds no lie! o.o cause the second time they SD'ed the game punished them for it and they were defeated...

this is why i am happy that i got a wifi extender for my room..kinda sucks i needed 1 in the first place for my room..but otherwise i couldn't play online at all cause Splatoon 2 kept kicking me out during a match before i had the Wifi extender as well :l for me online works like a charm now so if there is lag in a match..i know it's not me lol and i got no issues with Splatoon 2 at all now either..i can really suggest to you guys to buy a wifi extender cause it solves most of the lag/getting kicked out during a match!

 

[DelugeFGC]

I've been thinking.. this is barely a step above ****ing Melee.

Why do I say that? The online is so ****ed, that the ONLY way to find consistently decent games is to go join a Discord server, Smash Group or something like that.. what does that remind me of? A time when we didn't have online systems to do work for us, so we had to go out and do it on our own? Oh yeah, that sounds a lot like 2004. Sure, we can at least play with people without being physically present next to one another.. but THAT'S THE ONLY UPGRADE. Nearly 20 years, and this is it.. jesus.

At this rate, the only thing I can see saving this is a fine tuning of BA's and a separation of the Quickplay mode into a For Fun and For Glory but maybe with a little more depth than Sm4sh. Like, For Glory and For Fun could still have preferred rulesets, BUT some things would be set in stone. Like in For Glory, things such as no items, 1v1's and stage hazards off would all be stagnant.. but things such as time limit, stock limit and stage type could be played with. For Fun could be done in a similar way.

I also don't see GSP really, ever mattering. As a ranked system, it's not completely awful but it's by ZERO means an accurate measurement of a player's competitive skill. In reality, it's an assumption based off of the system haphazardly comparing your matches / ratios to literally EVERY SINGLE OTHER PLAYER with many important / key factors left out of the equation and spitting out a number. That number is also subject to change (rise) when you're not even playing online due to new players coming into the fold. So outside of it being the key to Elite Smash (which isn't some promised land of lag-free, great matches either though it is a LOT better for sure) there's ****-all making it worth keeping. As it stands, it's literally the thing screwing over a lot of players. A player gets online and has low GSP as they have not really played. So they're likely to get swept into stuff like FFA's, items-on games, etc. This increases the chance of losing. Losing means you lose GSP. Losing GSP means you're even MORE likely to get matched up in games with wacky ass rules. This makes you MORE likely to lose.. you see how this cycle is a bit screwed up?

It's really not a good thing that new players are simply one losing streak away with a character from getting them locked up in a hellscape of FFA's and final smash on / items-on matches and if that isn't what that player is looking for at ALL, it could turn them off of the game entirely. I understand that the online has to be welcoming and inviting for casual players, but those who have interest in the competitive side of the game are at risk of being burned completely if they lose enough games because of this. You do reach a point where it gets better.. but it's never gone. They need a proper ranked system, a total separation of said ranked mode and the casual modes (albeit one with more depth than Sm4sh hopefully.. but I'll take any improvement right now) is also pretty necessary to make things work.. and they also need to switch to dedicated servers for quickplay. I think BA's should stay P2P in the event of a switch, but quickplay is connection russian roulette in terms of who you'll get matched with. You may get matched with someone like me with 480mb/s internet and a LAN adapter.. or you might get matched with someone in rural Louisiana with spotty WiFi that their mom's microwave noodles are currently screwing with. Due to this, dedicated servers would be the smarter way to go.. this game has millions playing it after all.

BA's, however, should always stay P2P. This is where people (myself included) go to practice for-real with their friends and people from groups / Discord servers they belong to. When the two parties know each other and set the games up in advance, confirming things such as LAN adapters and rulesets are easy.. so P2P works for that. If they can just fix BA's, they could turn out quite nice and I'm fine with them being P2P and prefer it actually. Otherwise.. quickplay is completely broken.

 

[Noss92]

Update 3.0 will show us if they are aware of the mess they have made. Let's cross fingers

 

[lucasla]

I'm just beginning to accept the online is screwed. It's WAY too messed up to have any one thing be individually fixed and make a difference, damned near the whole package is flawed here. It would take something approaching an entire rework from the ground up, or basically going through all the existing content / infrastructure and heavily modifying it.

Battle Arena's are the best we have, but are still kinda crap.. ALTHOUGH, I feel they're our best chance. There's way too many problems with Quickplay, but there's few enough with BA's that it COULD be salvaged. First off, cut this crap with spectator's making the game lag. There is no reason that if I'm in a 1v1 with two spectators and one has a bad connection.. we ALL suffer. I know it's P2P, but there's other ways to do this and this was just lazy and it causes horrid consequences. The fact you also have to exit the queue / line to spectate is.. lunacy, you should be able to dip in and out of spectating (AND changing characters, that is also stupid and should be fixed) without EVER having to leave the line or risking lagging out the game.

If they could get the BA's down to where people can spectate BOTH without lagging the match (if they have a bad connection themselves, granted) and without leaving the line.. and to where people can change characters on the fly? They'd be in a good spot. Perfect? Hell no, far from it, but if they could at least tweak a few little things like that, and maybe if a few firmware updates could knock the Switch into gear internet-wise.. Smash Ultimate online could be a pretty good experience PROVIDED you play set up in advance games with people you KNOW have a good connection. Being able to consistently play with and practice with my friends via the online is really all I truly WANT, and if they can fix Battle Arena's.. we can have that.

Quickplay is ****ed though, no saving that.

Battle Arenas is the best option, but it brings a lot of things that I dont wanna deal with. I dont wanna waste time creating or looking arenas, or players, or wait in lines and watch other people's battles. I just want to press a button and have the game to do that work for me, like it was in Smash4, even with less options. Some default competitive settings on the quickplay screen with FORCED and not "recomended" rules, would fix that easily. They should not remove the For Fun and For Glory menus, they should update them and make them better. With the actual status of arena, I feel I pass more time on menus or waiting than actually having fun. I feel more stressful than anything when I came home after a day of work and I need to suffer and pass through a lot of waiting times, to find good matches, and most of the time, not find.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Battle Arenas is the best option, but it brings a lot of things that I dont wanna deal with. I dont wanna waste time creating or looking arenas, or players, or wait in lines and watch other people's battles. I just want to press a button and have the game to do that work for me, like it was in Smash4, even with less options. Some default competitive settings on the quickplay screen with FORCED and not "recomended" rules, would fix that easily. They should not remove the For Fun and For Glory menus, they should update them and make them better. With the actual status of arena, I feel I pass more time on menus or waiting than actually having fun. I feel more stressful than anything when I came home after a day of work and I need to suffer and pass through a lot of waiting times, to find good matches, and most of the time, not find.

Which is why if you want BA's to work, you need to find a group or Discord server and set up 1v1's and such in advance. Going into BA's with randoms is barely better than quickplay.

 

[lucasla]

Which is why if you want BA's to work, you need to find a group or Discord server and set up 1v1's and such in advance. Going into BA's with randoms is barely better than quickplay.

More work? I respectfully pass. I really have no time for this and I don't do it with any game. And I play a lot of online games. I also prefer to battle random people instead of people from a closed group.

 

[DelugeFGC]

More work? I respectfully pass. I really have no time for this and I don't do it with any game. And I play a lot of online games. I also prefer to battle random people instead of people from a closed group.

If you care about the game, you do what you need to. It's a bit past the point of trying to make silly protest moves, we're nearly 3 months in. It's a good bit past the time where ragequitting out of protest makes sense. Also the 'work' is miniscule and if you ever want to get serious about Smash anyway.. you need to have a group / crew. If you're not able to consistently get in practice with a group of skilled players, you won't ever grow at a decent rate. Quickplay simply won't ever give you that, even if fixed.. neither will BA's with randoms. But let's be real, quickplay won't be fixed as this is Nintendo.

So if you want good online, you have to do 'more work'. Sorry. If you like fighting strangers, you need to accept that there's always certain online problems you'll be dealing with. You say you play a lot of online games, so I assume you understand this. The Smash Ultimate online systems are not set up to be fixed, it's clear Nintendo is pretty content sitting on this. Which is why I feel the most we can hope for is BA's being fixed.

When you play with random people, you roll the dice. You roll the dice on their connection. You roll the dice on their skill. You roll the dice on their ruleset. You roll the dice on how toxic they are.. etc. Smash online suddenly becoming good won't really stop any of that.. it sounds like most of your issues come from fighting rando's where lag and such abounds.

People keep bringing up For Glory.. but it was **** too. May have been better than this, but it was still often a lagfest full of people trying to cheese out games. Which is my point, no matter WHAT THEY DO.. things such as getting games with laggy, toxic players.. not going anywhere. The only way to remedy that entirely is to find a group and put in this so called 'work' you speak of.

 

[Tbro]

Honestly if they don’t fix the online in 3.0 I’ll still renew online but only for Tetris 99

 

[DelugeFGC]

Honestly if they don't add Charlie the Unicorn to the roster in 3.0.0 I'll quit the game.

 

[Coolboy]

people are like ''i will quit online cause it sucks!'' but lets be honest..we all will be playing until a new smash game comes out xD if i had to take myself seriously each time i was salty about stuff..then i would never be playing games again lol

 

[DelugeFGC]

Btw Coolboy, a Wifi extender won't solve anything. The issue is the unstable nature of Wifi (it can be interfered with by pretty much anything electronic around it, plus a range of other variables can cause issues) in the first place, extending the range of your Wifi signal won't do anything. A LAN adapter is the only solution, and even then it's only a solution if both people who show up to the party have one, if it's your LAN adapter + 480mb/s connection up against Johnny's dial-up in Kansas it doesn't really matter. Both players will lag.

Point being, extending your wireless signal range won't do jack. That's not the problem.

 

[link2702]

So guys I just ran into my first taunt party on Ult. It was me against two others who refused to attack the other. It wasn't even those taunt parties that if you don't attack they won't either. They just straight up rushed me and didn't bother with the other. I lost of course and when I did the other just stocked themselves.

Love how we can't report stuff like this or even block them now.

You can report people. And block them. You have to go to records, past opponents, and then click their names for an option to report them appears.

I’ve reported plenty of people and will continue ot do so when they teabag. Idc what else they do. I don’t care if i win, they win, w/e, the instant they teabag it’s getting reported for unsportsmanlike behavior (which is a real option the game gives you to report btw). If you act like a disrespectful ass, you’ll be reported like one.

I won't bother reporting folks for timing me out, or running away, but teabagging, and what it’s come to represent in gaming will always guarantee a report.

 

[lucasla]

If you care about the game, you do what you need to. It's a bit past the point of trying to make silly protest moves, we're nearly 3 months in. It's a good bit past the time where ragequitting out of protest makes sense. Also the 'work' is miniscule and if you ever want to get serious about Smash anyway.. you need to have a group / crew. If you're not able to consistently get in practice with a group of skilled players, you won't ever grow at a decent rate. Quickplay simply won't ever give you that, even if fixed.. neither will BA's with randoms. But let's be real, quickplay won't be fixed as this is Nintendo.

So if you want good online, you have to do 'more work'. Sorry. If you like fighting strangers, you need to accept that there's always certain online problems you'll be dealing with. You say you play a lot of online games, so I assume you understand this. The Smash Ultimate online systems are not set up to be fixed, it's clear Nintendo is pretty content sitting on this. Which is why I feel the most we can hope for is BA's being fixed.

When you play with random people, you roll the dice. You roll the dice on their connection. You roll the dice on their skill. You roll the dice on their ruleset. You roll the dice on how toxic they are.. etc. Smash online suddenly becoming good won't really stop any of that.. it sounds like most of your issues come from fighting rando's where lag and such abounds.

People keep bringing up For Glory.. but it was **** too. May have been better than this, but it was still often a lagfest full of people trying to cheese out games. Which is my point, no matter WHAT THEY DO.. things such as getting games with laggy, toxic players.. not going anywhere. The only way to remedy that entirely is to find a group and put in this so called 'work' you speak of.

I care about the game, but I dont support this idea that I need to hunt players to play. I don't wanna become a professional on the game either, I will probably never play this game in any kind of competition, I just wanna play it properly. And this hunt to find players in groups, needing to chat with people I dont care, I dont like it. It never needed to be my job. I want good random matches with a decent matchmaking system. If the game doesnt provide that, they failed, and my options are stop playing, or try to take something good from what the game provides. But have extra work just to play a game... this is super annoying to me and I will just not support it and blame the game for the lack of these features.

 

[DelugeFGC]

You can report people. And block them. You have to go to records, past opponents, and then click their names for an option to report them appears.

I’ve reported plenty of people and will continue ot do so when they teabag. Idc what else they do. I don’t care if i win, they win, w/e, the instant they teabag it’s getting reported for unsportsmanlike behavior (which is a real option the game gives you to report btw). If you act like a disrespectful ***, you’ll be reported like one.

I won't bother reporting folks for timing me out, or running away, but teabagging, and what it’s come to represent in gaming will always guarantee a report.

How is crouching up and down unsportsmanlike when they outright removed taunts? I don't get people like you. Lighten the hell up and get over it, competitive or not it's a game. How the hell would you EVER handle a crowd literally screaming for your defeat and booing you in a tournament if you can't even handle someone crouching?

Keep reporting, see if it stops anything.. because people crouching is clearly the problem. I honestly don't see a single one of your reports doing diddly squat, either, because it'd be a REAL damned slippery slope to try and justify crouching as unsportmanlike when people literally do it to one another sometimes to SHOW RESPECT when they matched with someone with similar rules. So, what you perceive to be some sort of insult against your entire family that you have to run and tattle on could in reality be someone trying to be friendly. Also maybe I was feinting a Down B with PP? Maybe I had input delay from trying to drop off a platform? How do you KNOW I'm teabagging? You don't, neither does Nintendo.. so even in some sort of fantasy land where this could get you banned, actually enforcing it properly would be impossible.

You people are the problem, not people teabagging. This is a game, regardless of how seriously you play it. If all it takes to rustle your jimmies is someone pressing down on the L-Stick over and over.. well you must be real fun at parties. Smash is, above all else, a mental game. Taunting / getting in your opponents head is a PART of that.. not unsportsmanlike behavior. I really hate to see how some of you people would react to the climate at an intense tournament, especially if you're the one going up against the player the crowd wants to see win. You will have people chanting for 3/4 stocks, people insulting you, booing you, etc. You still have to keep playing, you can't pause the game and go cry to the TO. Get over it or find another niche, competitive gaming is competitive for a reason. When you play TO WIN, this kind of stuff abounds. Add in the mental / chess aspects of Smash and.. yeah. When we can't taunt, we're gonna teabag. Not to always say hey you suck, but sometimes just to piss you off and make it more likely you'll make a mistake. You sound.. almost naive.

 

[link2702]

Teabagging has been the universally understood sign of disrespect since the early days of multiplayer fps games.

I was never against the normal in game taunts, and I’m actually disappointed those were removed because aside from a handful, most weren’t remotely disrespectful to opponents and often were humorous(falcon). But teabagging has always represented one thing and one thing only in gaming, and that’s total disrespect to your opponent.

I wouldn’t give two ****s about what the crowd does. They’re not my opponent. Popping off and general unsportsmanlike acts are almost always banned in real sports, almost always resulting in penalties, removal from the field/court, etc, but no one cares about what the crowd does there, it’s expected the players however to show themselves as mature and respectful to each other. The same standard should be expected in esports. It’s just the next logical step for it now that it’s starting to get more mainstream.

You can hate it all you want, i will continue reporting every single player that teabags regardless of which of us wins the match.

 

[Team Orchid]

Uuuuugh, hi I've been trying quickplay to get Zelda practice and it keeps pairing me with gods that are 3M above me in rank. Is this because I have a Yoshi at 3M from winning one FFA while trying to achivement hunt for 30 characters in quickplay, because that's a really bad reason to pair a 78K Zelda against a 3.3M Lucina.

 

[Coolboy]

Uuuuugh, hi I've been trying quickplay to get Zelda practice and it keeps pairing me with gods that are 3M above me in rank. Is this because I have a Yoshi at 3M from winning one FFA while trying to achivement hunt for 30 characters in quickplay, because that's a really bad reason to pair a 78K Zelda against a 3.3M Lucina.

it has nothing to do with your combined GSP nor your highest GSP for characters,

it all goes random, sometimes i got matched with someone who had way less GSP then i do and other times much more then me :o
i guess you just had 1 of those bad unlucky days that the game matched you with highly skilled players ^^''

just try again another day and things might go better! :D

 

[KoopaSaki]

I’ll just make my statement here saying I’m done trying to improve as a a player at this game through online grinding cause the second i go to tourney in real life, I don’t do as well as I could cause I gotta get re configured with the frame rate and whiff more often. So I’m going to devote my smash time to lab sessions and only practice against players in real life for beneficial learning. So no more online for me unless Nintendo or sakurai fixes some of the issues and I mean some cause there are some things like input lag that can’t ever be fixed.

 

[Coolboy]

Btw Coolboy, a Wifi extender won't solve anything. The issue is the unstable nature of Wifi (it can be interfered with by pretty much anything electronic around it, plus a range of other variables can cause issues) in the first place, extending the range of your Wifi signal won't do anything. A LAN adapter is the only solution, and even then it's only a solution if both people who show up to the party have one, if it's your LAN adapter + 480mb/s connection up against Johnny's dial-up in Kansas it doesn't really matter. Both players will lag.

Point being, extending your wireless signal range won't do jack. That's not the problem.

no offense but now you are just trying to be a smartass to someone who tries to give advice to people how to get their wifi to work better, your reply reminds me of that Adventure time episode called ''Another way'' anyway back to the subject.. there is no ''ONLY WAY'' let that be made clear

if it's true what you say then my wifi must still suck..and guess what? it does not, it works perfectly now with a extender,
idk why you keep trying to proof me wrong with everything i say, can you just stop that? cause not everything you say is the truth nor a fact either.

a wifi extender works great and actually makes me have no issues at all but i'm sure you will try to proof me wrong again aren't you?