Why is online in this game so bad?

[Crazy Hand 2001]

I didn't see you try making your own arenas in there. Or using Anther's or some other media to find like-minded people if you're super paranoid about jerks joining. Because with all the options you're given to fight with, arranging things before hand is the only way to ensure people are 100% on board with how you want to play, online or off.

well what do you expect from a company who is absolutely **** at decision making?

 

[Ryu Myuutsu]

well what do you expect from a company who is absolutely **** at decision making?

He is talking about creating an arena or using a website to setup matches, which are both valid options. The arena for instance let's you create your own rulesets so you can play however you want, so it's a decent alternative from quickplay.

Don't know exactly what you were trying to say with your post, so you may want to elaborate on it, because it didn't make any sense at all, buddy.

 

[meleebrawler]

well what do you expect from a company who is absolutely **** at decision making?

And yet, most people here would apparently be happier with Nintendo deciding the rulesets we get to play online instead of the players.

 

[Ze Diglett]

And yet, most people here would apparently be happier with Nintendo deciding the rulesets we get to play online instead of the players.

The issue is we don't get to decide the rulesets we get to play online. I can go on Quickplay looking for Team Battles and actually get matched into one maybe half the time on a good day, and that doesn't even consider other factors like items and stage preference. That's not what I consider getting to choose how I want to play; at best, it's a loose correlation.

 

[Sans3546]

WHY IS ONLINE IN THIS GAME SO BAD

i can answer this question. it's because for whatever reason, the developers decided to allow us to choose preferred rules instead of separating those who play it for fun and whose who play it for glory. puns very much intended.

what is a good idea on paper turned out to be very bad in practice as we all found out very quickly. everyone is in one matchmaking pot this game which has an unfortunate yet frequent tendency to match casuals in the competitive scene and tournament competitors in free for alls, and none of the updates has done anything even remotely close to fixing the problem.

the system was so bad that i actually decided to conduct a study of percent chances for me to get my preferred rules. i recorded the statistics of 100 consecutive matches over the course of a week. 74 of those games were a free for all, 15 were 1v1s with anticompetitive rule sets, and only in 11 of those games did i get the preferred rules i have set all the time. the numbers i got just shows how flawed the system can be to some people.

then again, i was sucked down the gsp ladder early by this horrible matchmaking system early on in the game's development. i currently stand at around 800k unable to find any competitive matches through all the casual bulls***. if there's no fix in 3.0 then i honestly think there is absolutely zero hope for the future of ultimate's online. it's that bad.

 

[meleebrawler]

The issue is we don't get to decide the rulesets we get to play online. I can go on Quickplay looking for Team Battles and actually get matched into one maybe half the time on a good day, and that doesn't even consider other factors like items and stage preference. That's not what I consider getting to choose how I want to play; at best, it's a loose correlation.

Go on, keep ignoring arenas that do exactly what you want quickplay to do, for all the good you think it does for your argument.

 

[Ze Diglett]

Go on, keep ignoring arenas that do exactly what you want quickplay to do, for all the good you think it does for your argument.

I do play arenas, thank you very much. They're probably where the vast majority of my playtime in this game is spent, other than maybe some of the singleplayer stuff. Even then, opening up a public arena with my preferred rules is basically a crapshoot at best, and on most days, I'll be lucky if anyone joins within a reasonable period and actually sticks around - trust me, I've tried several times. (And let's not forget that organizing team battles in an arena is such a chore that it's basically not worth bothering. But sure, BAs completely replace Quickplay.)
Face it, Smash Ultimate's Online sucks, and Battle Arenas are at best a diamond in the rough. (And that's if we completely ignore the slew of problems BAs have as well - not being able to change stage/character without being booted out of the queue, for instance.)

 

[meleebrawler]

I do play arenas, thank you very much. They're probably where the vast majority of my playtime in this game is spent, other than maybe some of the singleplayer stuff. Even then, opening up a public arena with my preferred rules is basically a crapshoot at best, and on most days, I'll be lucky if anyone joins within 10 minutes and actually sticks around - trust me, I've tried several times. (And let's not forget that organizing team battles in an arena is such a chore that it's basically not worth bothering. But sure, BAs completely replace Quickplay.)
Face it, Smash Ultimate's Online sucks, and Battle Arenas are at best a diamond in the rough. (And that's if we completely ignore the slew of problems BAs have as well - not being able to change stage/character without being booted out of the queue, for instance.)

Regardless of what you think of them you still have to bring them up for any argument about the state of online to hold weight.

Since Quickplay is unlikely to be changed to your satisfaction as long as arenas technically make what you want them to do possible and due to requiring large overhauls to make it happen, why not focus your efforts on improving those arenas which can be fixed with more feasible tweaks?

 

[Crazy Hand 2001]

Regardless of what you think of them you still have to bring them up for any argument about the state of online to hold weight.

Since Quickplay is unlikely to be changed to your satisfaction as long as arenas technically make what you want them to do possible and due to requiring large overhauls to make it happen, why not focus your efforts on improving those arenas which can be fixed with more feasible tweaks?

Maybe because arenas have their own flaws such as the inability to have 2 players on one console.

 

[PSIPher]

then again, i was sucked down the gsp ladder early by this horrible matchmaking system early on in the game's development. i currently stand at around 800k unable to find any competitive matches through all the casual bulls***. if there's no fix in 3.0 then i honestly think there is absolutely zero hope for the future of ultimate's online. it's that bad.

Oh, I wouldn't worry about GSP. It's a terrible system and sucks the fun out of the online mode....well, what little fun there is to be had there...

I have a friend who is particularly 'precious' about his GSP rating and I see what it does to him. It pushes him to play in an ultra-safe, ultra-conservative style, sticking to a very limited number of tried and tested combos. If he loses to an objectively better player, he won't rematch to try and learn from them and improve. He'll just bemoan the loss of his GSP, and will (probably) then go on to block whoever he lost to.

And that's what the GSP system drives people to do. It just puts you in a rut and it makes you highly-strung about every game you play. You just won't evolve as a player that way. I'm not sure you'd have much fun playing either.

I think that, if you can get into Elite Smash and stay there over a long period of time, you can rightly consider yourself a strong player. But outside of that, I think GSP means very little. Personally, I see no noticeable difference in the general quality of opponents in the 100,000 to Elite Smash threshold range.

My own GSP fluctuates wildly between 400,000 and 4,000,000. But I'm still the same player. Where it sits in that range entirely depends on the luck of the draw in the matches I get. If I get matches aligned with my preferences (I'm happy with time or stock matches, items off, either on Omega or Battlefield) then my GSP rockets upwards. If I find myself on free-for-all, max items on ghastly scrolling levels like Pacland, or 3 stock 300HP stamina matches, then part of me dies inside and my heart won't be in it. So my GSP plummets again.

And then, of course, you get matches you lose because the game lags at a key moment (like during recovery), or you have an unlucky period where, if you lose, you lose GSP, but, if you win, you gain no GSP because your opponent has rage-quit half way through.

It's best just to ignore it all. It means nothing. It's just another in a long list of awful design decisions Nintendo made for this game.

 

[meleebrawler]

Oh, I wouldn't worry about GSP. It's a terrible system and sucks the fun out of the online mode....well, what little fun there is to be had there...

I have a friend who is particularly 'precious' about his GSP rating and I see what it does to him. It pushes him to play in an ultra-safe, ultra-conservative style, sticking to a very limited number of tried and tested combos. If he loses to an objectively better player, he won't rematch to try and learn from them and improve. He'll just bemoan the loss of his GSP, and will (probably) then go on to block whoever he lost to.

And that's what the GSP system drives people to do. It just puts you in a rut and it makes you highly-strung about every game you play. You just won't evolve as a player that way. I'm not sure you'd have much fun playing either.

I think that, if you can get into Elite Smash and stay there over a long period of time, you can rightly consider yourself a strong player. But outside of that, I think GSP means very little. Personally, I see no noticeable difference in the general quality of opponents in the 100,000 to Elite Smash threshold range.

My own GSP fluctuates wildly between 400,000 and 4,000,000. But I'm still the same player. Where it sits in that range entirely depends on the luck of the draw in the matches I get. If I get matches aligned with my preferences (I'm happy with time or stock matches, items off, either on Omega or Battlefield) then my GSP rockets upwards. If I find myself on free-for-all, max items on ghastly scrolling levels like Pacland, or 3 stock 300HP stamina matches, then part of me dies inside and my heart won't be in it. So my GSP plummets again.

And then, of course, you get matches you lose because the game lags at a key moment (like during recovery), or you have an unlucky period where, if you lose, you lose GSP, but, if you win, you gain no GSP because your opponent has rage-quit half way through.

It's best just to ignore it all. It means nothing. It's just another in a long list of awful design decisions Nintendo made for this game.

Yes, because rank anxiety and losing matches due to lag never happens in other competitive games, right? Games can't protect people from themselves. If I can pull through being Little Mac vs. Dedede on Hanenbow with items, so can you. But you don't have to use Quickplay to get better. If you think GSP psychological issues are a big deal it's easier to just inform other players about it.

Also block lists will fill up pretty fast if you do that with everyone you lose against.

 

[Deleted member]

I didn't see you try making your own arenas in there. Or using Anther's or some other media to find like-minded people if you're super paranoid about jerks joining. Because with all the options you're given to fight with, arranging things before hand is the only way to ensure people are 100% on board with how you want to play, online or off.

Go on, keep ignoring arenas that do exactly what you want quickplay to do, for all the good you think it does for your argument.

Actually, if you read through the post of mine you were quoting, you would find I said this: "And before anyone else says it again, I've tried ALL of the suggestions. I've tried background matchmaking, I've tried arena battles, etc. "

Arena battles, like Quickplay, work on PAPER, but not practice. You come across as someone who hasn't actually tried to make Arena Battles work for yourself. If Quickplay gets you into a match you don't want quickly, Arena Battles are the exact opposite. I can create my own arena with the rules I want, sure, but no one is going to join. And I can't just play the patient game because after 15 minutes of no one joining, the game forces you to shut down your arena. And if someone does join? Good luck trying to keep 4 players in the lobby so that you can actually do a team battle (which is what I want generally). So, if I want to actually play a game within 30-40 minutes it's more practical to just join another arena that already has several players and a close enough ruleset of what I want. But like I said, even that is janky because people will kick you, or the connection just drops, or the arena shuts down for any other reason, or people leave so you're left waiting for a fourth person to join again... Arena Battles should be called "Custom Matchmaking Where the Game does Nothing to Help and You Must do All the Work to Find People to Play Against But You'll End up Waiting a Hell of a lot More than Actually Playing and Even Then Half the Time You are Playing You'll Have Unstable Connections Followed by More Waiting....and then a Lot More Waiting".

This brings me to your point of using another medium to find players outside of the game. I have thought of this, and maybe I would at some point, but again that really shouldn't be my job. I don't have to go online to some website and arrange with random people to play an online match in Splatoon 2 or any other game I play online, and you don't either. For any other game, you just hop online, the game itself brings people together, and you start playing the mode you wanted to play. Rocket League is another good example that comes to mind; it's got several different modes and will even tell you how many players are queuing for which mode. You can choose to queue for multiple or just one so you're never disappointed with what you get. There were a couple modes I didn't prefer so the thought of playing that game where I would choose "preferences" to what I wanted but then the game forcing me to play Hoops or whatever (cause who likes Hoops amiright) would have been really frustrating.

Any way you slice it the online in Smash Ultimate is bad and every other game I can think of (including Smash 4) does it better.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

The joke of a mode we all know as QuickPlay has two critical issues. One with preferred rules and another with its GSP system. Preferred rules are an illusion unless you enjoy casual FFAs or are in the higher ends of Elite Smash. When I play, about a third of my matches are of casual rule sets. FFA is usually the deal breaker in spite of me requesting a 1v1, but that doesn't omit the possibility of a casual favored 1v1 either. I on average see competitive rules 2/3rds of the time, and that fraction is decreasing by the day. Also, GSP literally means nothing. I know there are very extreme memes out there where someone wins a match and gains 1 GSP but goes down to 1 GSP when they lose, but that is actually accurate to an extent. The system doesn't seem to mean anything to be honest and makes such dramatic shifts for no good reason.

You think that just because I criticized QuickPlay in the previous paragraph that I am here to advocate for Arenas? Everyone says "Go Play Arenas, They're Better." all the time in these forums, and while there is truth in that statement, it completely undermines the fact that all online modes are crap. Arenas like QuickPlay has major flaws that completely ruin it. Joining someone's arena is hard enough for many reasons. There are so many things that can go wrong that writing them all in one long paragraph about all the things that can f*** up arenas will be too long, so let me list them in bullet points.

• Sometimes, I get disconnected due to extreme distance from the host or due to the host's toaster wifi.
• Sometimes, the host decides to get offline for various reasons before I get to play a match.
• Sometimes, the host forcibly taken offline for various reasons before I get to play a match.
• Sometimes, the player I am up against is way above or way below my skill range and the battle becomes very one sided.
• Sometimes, spectators with extreme distance from the host or with toaster wifi will join the arena and lag everyone out.
• Sometimes, the host turns out to be extremely toxic and kicks me right after for being better than them.

Let me remind you that this doesn't even account for all the struggle you have to go through to find a lobby that has good rules. If you plan to host an arena, it is hard to get anyone to join it. If I don't get anyone in ten minutes, I leave because it's not really worth it to wait in my opinion. I didn't know before hand that waiting will force it to shut down because I have never had that kind of patience, but that's apparently a thing too.

All these online modes are crap to a point where I have stopped playing Smash Ultimate frequently. I only ever play with IRL friends or at Game Club at my high school which I will be graduating from in less than three months. I have instead opted to play more of other games on the Switch.

 

[TheDuke54]

Free for alls wouldn't be a problem for me if it they'd just have items have two options. None or all. That would kill half of the annoying cheese fights and headaches. Cause there's nothing casual about that.

They really should just have the host be switched the person with the most seniority when they leave. For arena battles, that is.

 

[UtopianPoyzin]

I on average see competitive rules 2/3rds of the time, and that fraction is decreasing by the day.

That's pretty odd, given that I get casual matches 1/5 of the time, and that factor is decreasing by the day. Online isn't even that bad any more if you don't give two ****s about GSP. I very often times get my preferred rules, however that statistic is closer to 67% then anything. Think about it. If you don't get your preferred rules, then the other player did. If you got the preferred rules, then it's pretty clear that the other person didn't either. In every match, somebody will always be playing with a preferred ruleset. And sure, while the system could do a better job at matchmaking with people with the same preferred rules, but I haven't been in a single Quickplay FFA match since 2.0. Nintendo is obviously fixing it.

 

[Deleted member]

That's pretty odd, given that I get casual matches 1/5 of the time, and that factor is decreasing by the day. Online isn't even that bad any more if you don't give two ****s about GSP. I very often times get my preferred rules, however that statistic is closer to 67% then anything. Think about it. If you don't get your preferred rules, then the other player did. If you got the preferred rules, then it's pretty clear that the other person didn't either. In every match, somebody will always be playing with a preferred ruleset. And sure, while the system could do a better job at matchmaking with people with the same preferred rules, but I haven't been in a single Quickplay FFA match since 2.0. Nintendo is obviously fixing it.

Ok but what is your preferred rule? If it's 1v1 then you really can't complain. It's easiest to get a 1v1 match. The problem is when your preferred rule is anything else, like a FFA or team battle, because the game usually starts a match before 4 players join (and 3 player FFA is literally the worst) and even if you do get 4 players it becomes a tossup whether it'll be FFA or teams. So don't waltz in here saying the online is fixed when all you want is 1v1.

 

[UtopianPoyzin]

Ok but what is your preferred rule? If it's 1v1 then you really can't complain. It's easiest to get a 1v1 match. The problem is when your preferred rule is anything else, like a FFA or team battle, because the game usually starts a match before 4 players join (and 3 player FFA is literally the worst) and even if you do get 4 players it becomes a tossup whether it'll be FFA or teams.

Fair, I do partake in majorly 1v1s. But when I do 2v2 teams, I always am satisfied. When I go for 4 player FFAs, I also usually get my preferred rules. Keep in mind that the more people in a match, it is naturally harder to satisfy everybody's request. I will say I have never actually sought 3 player FFAs, but then again, why?

So don't waltz in here saying the online is fixed when all you want is 1v1.

I can waltz where I want and say that online is fixed, and I don't just mean 1v1.

 

[Coolboy]

because the game usually starts a match before 4 players join (and 3 player FFA is literally the worst

it kinda can be..ugh i had a match like that recently.. a DK player and a Bowser player kept picking on me the whole time just to get me to be defeated first and then of course celebrating it with teabagging each time i lost a stock.. i honestly can't stand being picked on if it's not a team match, it will annoy the hell out of me after a few times >.> but lets say it matches like that makes me no longer wants to be nice and respectful either if i am winning from player(s) who i find annoying as well.

 

[Sucumbio]

Ok but what is your preferred rule? If it's 1v1 then you really can't complain. It's easiest to get a 1v1 match. The problem is when your preferred rule is anything else, like a FFA or team battle, because the game usually starts a match before 4 players join (and 3 player FFA is literally the worst) and even if you do get 4 players it becomes a tossup whether it'll be FFA or teams. So don't waltz in here saying the online is fixed when all you want is 1v1.

I also have preferred rules set to teams and using background match making it is now very rare the battles found are not at least teams. Items may be on, timer dumb or stock count dumb or stages dumb but almost always teams (has not been a 1v1 since 2.0)

So that tells me your region sucks for ppl selecting teams in their preferred rules.

I'd also assume when you finally do get one it's laggy or janky or both but I don't know obviously.

Maybe 3.0 will have more online improvement..., For Glory come back pls

 

[Deleted member]

Fair, I do partake in majorly 1v1s. But when I do 2v2 teams, I always am satisfied. When I go for 4 player FFAs, I also usually get my preferred rules. Keep in mind that the more people in a match, it is naturally harder to satisfy everybody's request. I will say I have never actually sought 3 player FFAs, but then again, why?

I can waltz where I want and say that online is fixed, and I don't just mean 1v1.

Exactly, NO ONE wants 3 player FFA and yet this game seems insistent on forcing people into such a match. It's beyond ridiculous.

I get that my preferences won't always exactly match with 4 people, duh. I just feel like it's not too much to ask for that I'd like to at least get a team battle when I want to play that. I'm not complaining about "oh I got a battlefield stage when I really wanted an omega" or some crap. I just want a team battle. And yet...it seems too much to ask most of the time.

Also your waltzing is terrible. Git gud.

Edit:

I also have preferred rules set to teams and using background match making it is now very rare the battles found are not at least teams. Items may be on, timer dumb or stock count dumb or stages dumb but almost always teams (has not been a 1v1 since 2.0)

So that tells me your region sucks for ppl selecting teams in their preferred rules.

I'd also assume when you finally do get one it's laggy or janky or both but I don't know obviously.

Maybe 3.0 will have more online improvement..., For Glory come back pls

I mentioned this before somewhere but I will qualify that the matching is BETTER when I'm using a character not in Elite Smash. I was good enough to get and keep several characters in Elite but since that's basically a tiny tiny pool of people who only want 1v1 apparently, my new goal is to now lose a bunch of matches with those characters so I can stay out of Elite. And then if I keep winning and get back into Elite I'll have to waste my time and the time of others by losing some more....yay. In fact I started doing so the other day, just pretty quickly throwing some matches but my GSP was hardly going down at all....so to actually remedy my situation it's going to require MORE WORK of me and waste everyone's time just so I can get into a larger pool with the characters that I like to play as. It's so stupid that it's come to this....

Also it's possible my region sucks on top of all that, who knows. I can get team battles in Quickplay (again, much easier when not Elite Smash) and they're not always laggy; the problem is simply that this happens not nearly as frequently or reliably as I'd like. Smash 4 would wait for a full room of 4 before starting a team match. Why can't Ultimate? Does anyone actually want to play 3-player FFA? I've played more 3-player FFA matches in the past 4 months than I ever have in the past 20 years since playing Smash Bros. and that's not a good thing.

 

[meleebrawler]

Fair, I do partake in majorly 1v1s. But when I do 2v2 teams, I always am satisfied. When I go for 4 player FFAs, I also usually get my preferred rules. Keep in mind that the more people in a match, it is naturally harder to satisfy everybody's request. I will say I have never actually sought 3 player FFAs, but then again, why?



I can waltz where I want and say that online is fixed, and I don't just mean 1v1.

I'm gonna stop you right here and say that it is pointless to try and relate your Quickplay experiences in the hopes of swaying others. Everyone has very different wants and situations that results in on the of the biggest ''your mileage may vary'' examples ever.

This is the curse of any game with loads and loads of options for online multiplayer. Look at Monster Hunter, another lobby-based system. Pretty much all the arena pitfalls mentioned here can be found there too when playing with randoms. Getting kicked for petty reasons, massive difficulty at times finding people who want to do the same thing as you, varying skill levels, people leaving far earlier than you'd like etc. (really, how are you supposed to force people to stay for more than one game?). And yet, you don't hear many people claiming that game's online experience is bad. Monster Hunter is commonly accepted to be much more enjoyable when you have a group of reliable friends to play with and Smash is no different. And what happens when you limit the options available to try and make things more consistent? People complain there isn't enough variety.

Imagine if they just ported Smash 4's For Glory to this game. That would not have gone over well since it is now agreed that two stocks is generally too short. But who could have known that without everyone labbing the game to find this out? No matter what you do with public matchmaking (limited, but consistent or option-rich but volatile), there will always be people unhappy about being unable to do a specific thing there, and be brought back to square one with arenas.

 

[Ze Diglett]

Exactly, NO ONE wants 3 player FFA and yet this game seems insistent on forcing people into such a match. It's beyond ridiculous.

I get that my preferences won't always exactly match with 4 people, duh. I just feel like it's not too much to ask for that I'd like to at least get a team battle when I want to play that. I'm not complaining about "oh I got a battlefield stage when I really wanted an omega" or some crap. I just want a team battle. And yet...it seems too much to ask most of the time.

Also your waltzing is terrible. Git gud.

Edit:


I mentioned this before somewhere but I will qualify that the matching is BETTER when I'm using a character not in Elite Smash. I was good enough to get and keep several characters in Elite but since that's basically a tiny tiny pool of people who only want 1v1 apparently, my new goal is to now lose a bunch of matches with those characters so I can stay out of Elite. And then if I keep winning and get back into Elite I'll have to waste my time and the time of others by losing some more....yay. In fact I started doing so the other day, just pretty quickly throwing some matches but my GSP was hardly going down at all....so to actually remedy my situation it's going to require MORE WORK of me and waste everyone's time just so I can get into a larger pool with the characters that I like to play as. It's so stupid that it's come to this....

Also it's possible my region sucks on top of all that, who knows. I can get team battles in Quickplay (again, much easier when not Elite Smash) and they're not always laggy; the problem is simply that this happens not nearly as frequently or reliably as I'd like. Smash 4 would wait for a full room of 4 before starting a team match. Why can't Ultimate? Does anyone actually want to play 3-player FFA? I've played more 3-player FFA matches in the past 4 months than I ever have in the past 20 years since playing Smash Bros. and that's not a good thing.

I know I'd enjoy 3-person FFAs a lot more if one of those three people didn't have to act as "the Volleyball" at any given time - anyone who's been matched into a 3-person FFA on Quickplay knows the exact scenario I'm talking about.

 

[Penroze]

At this point while playing Quickplay I set preferred rules off because it makes no difference. At least it lets my opponent always get the ruleset they want.

 

[Jaro235]

I currently have 7 minutes stock with no items and battlefield only and earlier this week, I got paired up with someone with the exact opposite ruleset. They had items, it was timed for two minutes, and they had all stages with hazards. That just shows how bad the matchmaking is for quick play. ZeRo puts it perfectly when he said that neither player has fun.

 

[lucasla]

Go on, keep ignoring arenas that do exactly what you want quickplay to do, for all the good you think it does for your argument.

Arenas take an unnecessary time. They are fine for custom matches, but to just start the game and play, it's not a good system. You need to keep looking for good arenas, then you may have lines and waiting times on each arena, and may be forced to watch other people's games while waiting for your turnb, if not you will just keep playing with the same person if you dont go away to look for another arena, but doing that you maybe will lose an arena that was bad because there was always the same person but at least you was playing, and now you are just losing time looking for another good arena, instead of the game just have a f*****g quick for-glory button that removes all the waiting times, all the unnecessary effort to find good arenas, and all the problems of you not wanting to play with the same person all the time but afraid to not find another arena.

 

[TheTrueBrawler]

Think about it. If you don't get your preferred rules, then the other player did. If you got the preferred rules, then it's pretty clear that the other person didn't either. In every match, somebody will always be playing with a preferred ruleset. And sure, while the system could do a better job at matchmaking with people with the same preferred rules, but I haven't been in a single Quickplay FFA match since 2.0. Nintendo is obviously fixing it.

I understand that, and when I get matched in a 1v1, usually I am matched with someone who has preferred rules similar to mine, but for whatever reason, the game is still putting me in FFAs despite my preferred rules. It's only slightly better than 1.1.0 right now. They may be fixing it for some people, but not everyone is relishing in the alleged fixes.

 

[meleebrawler]

Arenas take an unnecessary time. They are fine for custom matches, but to just start the game and play, it's not a good system. You need to keep looking for good arenas, then you may have lines and waiting times on each arena, and may be forced to watch other people's games while waiting for your turnb, if not you will just keep playing with the same person if you dont go away to look for another arena, but doing that you maybe will lose an arena that was bad because there was always the same person but at least you was playing, and now you are just losing time looking for another good arena, instead of the game just have a f*****g quick for-glory button that removes all the waiting times, all the unnecessary effort to find good arenas, and all the problems of you not wanting to play with the same person all the time but afraid to not find another arena.

Better start polling on what fixed rulesets people actually want then. Some people around here probably wouldn't stomach having only timed 2v2s again...

 

[Alsyght]

Online is bad because Sakurai hasn’t been fed his daily quota of sacrifices.

Relevant edit and complaint: When you hold shield when the game lags, does the parry effect happen for anybody else? Because I just played against a Greninja online and they threw a fully charged water shiruken at me after I did a normal get up from the ledge. I held shield, but it let it go because I was in a panic (I was losing) and I somehow parried the whole attack when it should have killed me. The parry effect and sound went off like 5 times through the whole thing. It would be impressive if I actually new or cared how to parry, but it just irked me because the game shouldn’t be THAT laggy.

 

[TheDuke54]

I've noticed a lot of people able to perform that shield parry whenever it lags pretty bad.

And yeah 3 free for all is the worst sometimes. On a normal stage it's not bad, but for glory stages are terrible.

 

[lucasla]

Better start polling on what fixed rulesets people actually want then. Some people around here probably wouldn't stomach having only timed 2v2s again...

The same as WiiU game with 3 Stock.

 

[TheDuke54]

I would rather have timed battles sometimes opposed to stock when you get stuck into a cheesed match. At least then you can still play, even if you lose terribly.

 

[AbsyntheMinded]

I love smash ultimate, so i really don't want to hate on the game, but the online mode is by far the worst piece of garbage to ever ship with a game period. I don't see how anybody gets enjoyment from it, in most cases i feel time wasted playing this game online would be better spent forcefully banging my head into a concrete wall. To the point where honestly i just try to avoid it. I spend my time in training mode then play a handful of games online and just sigh as i once again get thrown into 1v1 after 1v1 on normal stages with hazards and all items on.

Yes there is anther's and battle arenas if you have the patience, and that is great, woop de doo you can use a third party organized website to bypass the horrible online game mode to find someone who actually wants to play by the same rules as you.

This is a flagship game for the switch, tons of switches were sold specifically for this game. How as a team of developers do you manage to pooch it this hard? Not counting the lag because most people don't have a LAN adapter, what were they thinking? If it was just Sakurai's decision and this was their first ever attempt at it, i could accept it. One man could potentially make an absolutely horrible decision like this and not know how it would play out.
But a whole team of developers, with the benefit of a previous title's online feedback, and literally a million other games online system out there to use as a frame of reference? How in the hell do you come up with this thing and think to yourself "nailed it!"

I liked the person who pointed out rocket league's plethora of game modes and search system. I too play that game and if people queued up for 2v2 hoops in that game and got thrown into 3v3 snowday instead, that game would have withered and died.

for the people defending smash's online game mode. Don't. The argument that if you didn't get your ruleset, at least the other person did so he/she is happy, is not a valid excuse. If I was nintendo I would already be hard at work fixing this, not just fixing, but a complete overhaul of the system. Maybe not in time for 3.0, but at least in time for the next big update after that, and let people know that you saw the error of your ways and will be fixing it. For glory/for fun was better than this.

This online mode just makes it seem like nintendo couldn't care less about what you did after you purchased the game, they got your $80 already. Such a shame for such a great game.

For the people that say, well play in person, it's a social game. That's great. and you have a point, I prefer playing with my friends, but they live an hour away and i can't just drive there to get an hour of playtime in with them every day.

 

[TheDuke54]

Even playing with friends is kind of a mixed bag. They really did make online play a lot more complicated in how things function when Smash4's online did it so well. And that's not even taking in account the 4fun/4glory aspect. Like just going online and selecting where and how you wanted to go into something was done so simple. On Ult there's a lot more you can choose from on quickplay and arena and it just feels like an unpolished clutter of a mess. Almost like they never really got around to finalizing it.

And if you somehow get a timed penalty you can't do anything. You can't even play with friends. You could play with friends if you got banned or time penalized on Smash4.

 

[waVe64]

It genuinely hurts, because I want to play online but I know I'm gonna find matches with terrible connections that make me hate the game more. I go to a weekly which is at least better than online, but I pity the people who don't have one in their area/can't afford to go often.

Nintendo has never been really good with online in their games, especially not smash, but at least Brawl was bad because of the terrible Wii online in general, and For Glory on sm4sh, although terrible on 3DS, was still good occasionally on Wii U. The best example of online gaming from Nintendo is from COD: Black Ops on Wii, and something tells me they had nothing to do with it.
(Also, BO1 on Wii had dedicated servers... I wish there was that on SSBU.)

 

[TheDuke54]

It's kind of sad looking back on my posts when I first joined and other places I visited before Ultimate was even talked about. We would post what are thoughts of it are going to be (as far as online experience goes) and what they should do to fix Smash4's online overall. And we'd all be like 'they can't do any worst then Smash4, so there's that.'

And they exceeded our expectations, but in the wrong direction.

 

[Princess Rescuer]

Long time no see. Did you miss me?

Despite how content rich Smash Ultimate is, even big fans say the online is a bust. It's kind of a dud. A real bummer. And it's not for the reasons you think- it's not because of lag or price, though those are issues. It's because the design was bad from the beginning and it changes something that was already perfect.

What was wrong with For Glory mode? Nothing. It was perfect. SSBU attempts to "fix" For Glory by letting players pick their favorite rulesets. But that was unnecessary- FG was based off of a ruleset every competitive player already likes. And even in the new online mode, everyone goes with the same ruleset pretty much. That isn't that much of a problem in that case. No- the real problem the online has is the amount of WAITING you do. Especially if you want fair, honest, 1-on-1 No Items battles. The more players there are, the more waiting there is. And keep in mind, changing the song to your favorite one, or changing your character, or exiting the lobby and deciding you want to go back in are all things that put you in the back of the line. Another thing that kicks you out? If one competitor disconnects during a battle. That kicks EVERYONE in a lobby out. And when you finally do fight, you end up fighting against the toughest opponents ALL THE TIME. Every opponent you fight has studied the frame data and quirks and minutia of whatever character they're playing and given that the winner stays, will have plenty of opportunities to stay sharp and hone their techniques while you wait around and forget what it was you were doing.

The idea of Spectating is that you can study your opponents' moves, but that was something you could do in For Glory whenever you immediately re-fought the same opponent. And isn't most of the practice done outside of competitive modes anyway? I just don't get why everything in the newer installment is less efficient than it was even in previous generations.

 

[Coolboy]

they could also give a option you can quit a match after you already lost, the game already calculated your GSP loss anyway so if you don't want to wait you should just be able to leave, now people just ragequit and me or someone else that won don't get our GSP.

especially me if i am in a disadvantage, if only 1 opponent is left and has a advantage over me, i can drag out the match until the end cause i play more carefully at that point. not everyone gets happy by waiting on that xD

 

[TheDuke54]

This needs to be a thing. I've had plenty of free for alls where no one wanted to do anything and I was the only one bringing the fight. I forget the stage name, but it's the dreamland cloudy stage for Earthbound. Think it was last weekend I was up against a Lucas, Samus, and Palutena and they just occasionally shot out a few shots and then stood there forever on one of the three separate clouds.

Most of the KOs were from me, but I did end up dying first. After I died, the entire match was practically put on hold until the timer ran out. They just stood there almost like they were lvl 1 cpus and did nothing. I would had rather been given the choice to just leave because I already lost. That was so boring.

 

[lucasla]

I love smash ultimate, so i really don't want to hate on the game, but the online mode is by far the worst piece of garbage to ever ship with a game period. I don't see how anybody gets enjoyment from it, in most cases i feel time wasted playing this game online would be better spent forcefully banging my head into a concrete wall. To the point where honestly i just try to avoid it. I spend my time in training mode then play a handful of games online and just sigh as i once again get thrown into 1v1 after 1v1 on normal stages with hazards and all items on.

Yes there is anther's and battle arenas if you have the patience, and that is great, woop de doo you can use a third party organized website to bypass the horrible online game mode to find someone who actually wants to play by the same rules as you.

This is a flagship game for the switch, tons of switches were sold specifically for this game. How as a team of developers do you manage to pooch it this hard? Not counting the lag because most people don't have a LAN adapter, what were they thinking? If it was just Sakurai's decision and this was their first ever attempt at it, i could accept it. One man could potentially make an absolutely horrible decision like this and not know how it would play out.
But a whole team of developers, with the benefit of a previous title's online feedback, and literally a million other games online system out there to use as a frame of reference? How in the hell do you come up with this thing and think to yourself "nailed it!"

I liked the person who pointed out rocket league's plethora of game modes and search system. I too play that game and if people queued up for 2v2 hoops in that game and got thrown into 3v3 snowday instead, that game would have withered and died.

for the people defending smash's online game mode. Don't. The argument that if you didn't get your ruleset, at least the other person did so he/she is happy, is not a valid excuse. If I was nintendo I would already be hard at work fixing this, not just fixing, but a complete overhaul of the system. Maybe not in time for 3.0, but at least in time for the next big update after that, and let people know that you saw the error of your ways and will be fixing it. For glory/for fun was better than this.

This online mode just makes it seem like nintendo couldn't care less about what you did after you purchased the game, they got your $80 already. Such a shame for such a great game.

For the people that say, well play in person, it's a social game. That's great. and you have a point, I prefer playing with my friends, but they live an hour away and i can't just drive there to get an hour of playtime in with them every day.

I dont believe that the problem of the connectivity of the online happens because people are not using the LAN Adapter. I think the problem is really the P2P system, and the LAN Adapter is just a possibility of try to make things better, but never the cause or solution to the main problem, that is the
engineering of the online system as a whole, starting from the P2P system. Any way, in all cases, it's Nintendo's fault. It was obvious they couldn't expect that the 15mi buyers of the game would buy LAN Adapters too, just a minority of people will ever do that, so, they could have better decisions about how to build the online system of their biggest online competitive franchise (the dedicated servers that dont exists).

 

[AbsyntheMinded]

I am not even that fussed about the lag. Does it suck, yes, but such is life. I would much rather get to play my rule set every game with a bit of lag over getting thrown into random games with no lag. I came from street fighter 4 and Marvel vs Capcom, as far as i'm aware they used P2P and most of the time it was absolutely fine, except for those few people who lagged it out for everyone involved.

i'm quite sure it's not so much a P2P issue as it is a poor netcode issue and a lack of ethernet cable for every console. I'm sure there's lots of people who have their modem right next to their tv, so even without a lan adapter it would be decent cause the console is right next to the modem, but how many people are playing in their bedrooms when the modem is 3 rooms down with no boosters just lagging everyone else out while the rest of their family is streaming/downloading and god knows what else?

the lag is something that at least we as consumers can partially fix by getting lan adapters ($30 is not an immense investment), the crappy netcode and poor matching system is something that is out of our control.