Why is online in this game so bad?

[TheDuke54]

Well I frequent an Animal Crossing forum that has a section dedicated to Smash threads and the backlash for online is a popular topic. I also have two discord channels where while we don't like online we endure it and mostly just do friend matches now instead of random. And even with friend matches we are still restricted in some parts.

I know that I've found plenty of reddit topics about online being trash compared to smash4 and the such. I don't know about places like tumblr and twitter, but both of those don't really encourage interaction all that much. You can only post 100 words or whatever on twitter and that doesn't really give much room for discussion. And tumblr is just a community that regurgitates annoying gifs to convey their emotions.

 

[AbsyntheMinded]

real talk. There's only 2 ways i can see people being fine with this online system, or not caring about it. A. This is their first ever online experience and thus they have nothing decent to compare it to. B they are about 7 years old and are just happy their parents are letting them play anything online. I would find it hard to believe that japanese people are somehow all ok with this system. Maybe they are just reluctant to voice their concerns as a cultural thing?

I get bodied online all the time because I am not great at the game. But that's fine. That's why I play, to get better at this game. Part of getting better at something, is consistency. It is hard to get consistent good practice in when you get put in to 1 stock games on hazard stages with all the items enabled every few games. No useful matchup information to be learned from pokeballs flying around your ears left and right, other than, don't play this game mode.

As for why smashboards gets all the people complaining and other outlets don't. For me the choice is simple. Smashboards is the first forum that shows up when you google smash forums. It also has a good amount of users and activity. You would hope some of the people at least at nintendo US browse through these forums occasionally to see how their game is being received.

Listen, even with the crappy online system. I can admit I will more than likely keep playing online because I just don't have another option to get meaningful games in most days. I will more likely just migrate to anther's ladder more and more, just so I have some control over who and on what I have to play on.

 

[Smartz]

Can we try getting some second opinions from outside Smashboards? It sounds like an echo chamber in here. Remember that Nintendo is Japanese and can't help but base their decisions on Japanese sensibilities; the opinions of foreign markets aren't worthless, but, well, the foreign markets aren't what's on their doorstep. I've heard that Japan's online infrastructure and general social cohesion is leaps and bounds above that of the United States. For all we know, Ultimate's online functions roughly as intended (read: is actually playable) in Japan (as opposed to the absolute pile of steaming garbage everyone here perceives it as).

As for me, I haven't had any issues with online aside from constantly getting bodied, which I just chalk up to being not very good at the game.

The thing with Japan is, everyone that plays it lives really close to one another. The country is smaller than California and I know for a fact that there have been people saying the online there hasn’t been 100% because there was a link to a Japanese forum board regarding the online system for Nintendo and how garbage it was. (I’ll try and find it and possible post it but I don’t know the rules regarding external links on here so I don’t want to post it without confirmation that I can.)

Regarding the thing about being bad I know I’m not bad. I’ve taken sets off people in my area that are really good and I live in Houston, there is a lot of good players in my area. I sound arrogant here and that’s not my intent with this comment. I’ve lost games online where the lag was so bad that a Mii Brawler spamming side B has 3 stocked me.

 

[lucasla]

The thing with Japan is, everyone that plays it lives really close to one another. The country is smaller than California and I know for a fact that there have been people saying the online there hasn’t been 100% because there was a link to a Japanese forum board regarding the online system for Nintendo and how garbage it was. (I’ll try and find it and possible post it but I don’t know the rules regarding external links on here so I don’t want to post it without confirmation that I can.)

Regarding the thing about being bad I know I’m not bad. I’ve taken sets off people in my area that are really good and I live in Houston, there is a lot of good players in my area. I sound arrogant here and that’s not my intent with this comment. I’ve lost games online where the lag was so bad that a Mii Brawler spamming side B has 3 stocked me.

I'm probably with the same problem you have. How I wish to have the preffered rules as my main problem! That would mean that at least I'm not lagged! My game is not even playable in matches of 4 players (I already gave up, it never worked since the WiiU), and even in 1v1 is not always stable (it's fine and playable most of the times, but far from being a great experience), so, people that have the problem of the game not always inserting them in their rulesets are already in heaven and they dont know.

 

[Sucumbio]

For me the disconnects are definitely due to poor wifi. In a structure with dedicated wifi gaming in mind Ultimate typically runs fine even without the LAN. WIFI Is the culprit. It has to be coddled from a game design perspective. The dumb **** is other game devs have all but mastered quality WIFI games that are more complicated than smash.

 

[meleebrawler]

For me the disconnects are definitely due to poor wifi. In a structure with dedicated wifi gaming in mind Ultimate typically runs fine even without the LAN. WIFI Is the culprit. It has to be coddled from a game design perspective. The dumb **** is other game devs have all but mastered quality WIFI games that are more complicated than smash.

Isn't your issue with the Switch's wi-fi card rather than Smash itself?

 

[Smartz]

For me the disconnects are definitely due to poor wifi. In a structure with dedicated wifi gaming in mind Ultimate typically runs fine even without the LAN. WIFI Is the culprit. It has to be coddled from a game design perspective. The dumb **** is other game devs have all but mastered quality WIFI games that are more complicated than smash.

Isn't your issue with the Switch's wi-fi card rather than Smash itself?

If that is the point then I don't think the switch actually has bad wifi as dumb as that sounds. Honestly Splatoon 2 is an extremely smooth experience for playing and I feel no input lag at all when I play it. When I play Mario Kart the game runs really well (beside a few minor client side errors regarding item collision). I think the switch HAS good wifi it's just not used properly for this game.

 

[Sucumbio]

Isn't your issue with the Switch's wi-fi card rather than Smash itself?

No. The switch isn't bad at wifi smash just needs a lot of room to work. Instead of just reducing the load by switching to a lower level of visual pleasure for online the game tries in vain to piggyback all that load as if it was local.

 

[lucasla]

No. The switch isn't bad at wifi smash just needs a lot of room to work. Instead of just reducing the load by switching to a lower level of visual pleasure for online the game tries in vain to piggyback all that load as if it was local.

But you can't assume the game is visually intensive at the point of cause damage to the online experience, you dont know that. For me, the game actually looks super not intensive. Beautiful art, but far from being a graphically intensive game. Many stages are super simple, and then there's the background and characters, and it's basically that. For a fighting game to be more simple than many smash stages, only making the players to fight on top of a cube. Also, graphic information are not carried through the internet to the other players.

 

[AbsyntheMinded]

Isn't your issue with the Switch's wi-fi card rather than Smash itself?

It's to do with the game's netcode, not the wi-fi. Yes ethernet would make for an overall smoother experience, but smash's netcode would still be bad.

I play mario tennis online on the switch as well, both with an without a lan adapter, and there is never any lag in that game. Mind you, it also goes and shows you your connection strength to the opponent before the game, so should you match up with someone who's connection is bad, you can just not play them instead of wasting 10 minutes of your life

 

[Sucumbio]

But you can't assume the game is visually intensive at the point of cause damage to the online experience, you dont know that. For me, the game actually looks super not intensive. Beautiful art, but far from being a graphically intensive game. Many stages are super simple, and then there's the background and characters, and it's basically that. For a fighting game to be more simple than many smash stages, only making the players to fight on top of a cube. Also, graphic information are not carried through the internet to the other players.

It's all about efficiency. 4 players from 4 different locales means 4 switches engaged in synchronized communication over the net. Simple really except that when one node suffers lag everyone has to slow down to the lowest connection speed to avoid desync. I'm not saying that the problem is easily fixed by dumbing down how the game looks per se but rather reducing how much information is stored and transferred.

 

[Crazy Hand 2001]

That's exactly it... I feel like it's likely that most people don't care.

I wager that people DO care, just that Nintendo never likes to listen to their fans much.

Or that fanboys will defend Nintendo on anything.

 

[lucasla]

It's all about efficiency. 4 players from 4 different locales means 4 switches engaged in synchronized communication over the net. Simple really except that when one node suffers lag everyone has to slow down to the lowest connection speed to avoid desync. I'm not saying that the problem is easily fixed by dumbing down how the game looks per se but rather reducing how much information is stored and transferred.

Sure, but many stages of Smash, while beautiful, if you look again you see it's a super simple geometry. Even the Great Plateou Tower that is a beautiful stage is super simple, cause the entire background is a image (like a skybox), it's not really 3d elements, and Smash does some tricks in every stage to make them look beautiful while being not heavy for the console at the same time. If the Switch can't handle some simple plataforms with a image at the background, well... And specially the battlefield and omega stages, that are even more simple. Only the characters have consistent high level of detail. I don't think this is a case of graphics impactating on performance. You may see some lag if you select a stage with too many elements and put 8 Ice Climbers to fight - I did it and it's actually pretty fun to watch

 

[Mental Surge]

I don't understand why there is not a specific ruleset for 'ranked/for glory' in this game. There is no excuse to get in to an Elite Smash game that's stamina with max items and 1 stock. Absolutely inexcusable.

 

[Coolboy]

I don't understand why there is not a specific ruleset for 'ranked/for glory' in this game. There is no excuse to get in to an Elite Smash game that's stamina with max items and 1 stock. Absolutely inexcusable.

like i mentioned in another thread, ES or not, people are free to decide whatever ruleset they like, don't expect everyone who is in ES to want to play the same ruleset like you do,
you know if i get in ES i will still pick FFA and probably any stage as my ruleset..and if anyone got a problem with that then idc cause ES and online is for EVERYONE not just you very competitive people. plz just accept not everyone wants to play the tournament ruleset -.-

 

[Sucumbio]

Sure, but many stages of Smash, while beautiful, if you look again you see it's a super simple geometry. Even the Great Plateou Tower that is a beautiful stage is super simple, cause the entire background is a image (like a skybox), it's not really 3d elements, and Smash does some tricks in every stage to make them look beautiful while being not heavy for the console at the same time. If the Switch can't handle some simple plataforms with a image at the background, well... And specially the battlefield and omega stages, that are even more simple. Only the characters have consistent high level of detail. I don't think this is a case of graphics impactating on performance. You may see some lag if you select a stage with too many elements and put 8 Ice Climbers to fight - I did it and it's actually pretty fun to watch

Think bigger scale smaller detail. It's not just stages or sprites or character movement. It's everything all synced all the time.

Look at it like this:

Your job every day is to deliver 3 oranges to 3 different people. You must deliver them so they arrive at the same time for everyone. One lives next door. One lives 1919 miles away and the other lives on Mars. Obviously you cannot be in 3 places at once so you hire help. The Internet.

And for 3 oranges it works. In order to do it you take everyone's route into consideration. Next door you can hand deliver the orange. 1919 miles gonna ship it. Mars lol whatever

They arrive at the same time remember. So you send your longest package first.

3 years later Mars Orange 2 the first one blew up on the way... is ready to be handed to the recipient.

So 3 years ago fedex pulled up to recipient 2 and has been waiting for the final hand off for awhile.

You've been waiting the longest and your delivery is 20 feet away!

Annnnnd go! Awwwwwwwwwwww FedEx because he's been waiting 3 years DROPPED THE ORANGE

Your recipient is unhappy because it's not an orange anymore. It's a Bruised Orange. Can't use it.




Start....


Again.

Yeah see in this orange delivery business you made you agreed that anyone getting a same time delivery also agrees to NO delivery should ONE delivery not succeed. Period.

Let's just say Mars could have already evaporated by the time the fruit shows up.

Now obviously the Internet is much faster. But it still works along the same principle. And it's millions of oranges to millions of recipients every second.

You tell me why you think Smash lags. Cause they programmed it backwards. You start with an Online Mode and then reverse engineer your fight engine from what your online fight engine can do.

Nintendo went on their expertise and Smash has suffered. WIFI sucks. Not cause the switch can't use it. Because it's a flawed communication system.

 

[Mental Surge]

like i mentioned in another thread, ES or not, people are free to decide whatever ruleset they like, don't expect everyone who is in ES to want to play the same ruleset like you do,
you know if i get in ES i will still pick FFA and probably any stage as my ruleset..and if anyone got a problem with that then idc cause ES and online is for EVERYONE not just you very competitive people. plz just accept not everyone wants to play the tournament ruleset -.-

I sure hope you are joking. That is no excuse to be matched up with someone who wants to play a game with the rules I said. If we have completely different rule preferences then why the hell is it matching us together in the first place? If people don't want to play online competitively then have 2 different matchmaking modes like they had in smash 4. It's not a difficult concept. If you want to play FFA then you should not be getting matched with people who want to play 1v1 or 2v2. Just because YOU want to play FFA it should not force ME to play it too against my will.

It is absolutely inexcusable for my ranking to go down because I get put in a game against my will where their are items and stage hazards. I don't care if I have to wait a bit longer for the queue to pop, as long as I can get reasonable rules for the game I am happy. Again, they had this figured out in Smash 4 so why is this such an issue?

 

[Coolboy]

I sure hope you are joking. That is no excuse to be matched up with someone who wants to play a game with the rules I said. If we have completely different rule preferences then why the hell is it matching us together in the first place? If people don't want to play online competitively then have 2 different matchmaking modes like they had in smash 4. It's not a difficult concept. If you want to play FFA then you should not be getting matched with people who want to play 1v1 or 2v2. Just because YOU want to play FFA it should not force ME to play it too against my will.

It is absolutely inexcusable for my ranking to go down because I get put in a game against my will where their are items and stage hazards. I don't care if I have to wait a bit longer for the queue to pop, as long as I can get reasonable rules for the game I am happy. Again, they had this figured out in Smash 4 so why is this such an issue?

i'm not saying you should do stuff you don't like, nor should you be getting them in the first place
BUT there are also people like me who once they get into ES want to play something else other then 1v1 on certain stages only, and you basically want it to have a certain ruleset and i already know that will be 1v1 3 stock on certain stages am i right? no i don't think that's fair for people like me either who don't find 1v1 the most enjoyable 1 to be forced to play just that just cause i get in ES
can we at least agree on that we all should get the ruleset we want no matter what it is? cause ES or not people should be able to play it the way they want to. what's wrong with ranked having more rulesets then just 1? i don't find that a problem, the problem here is that people get rulesets they do not want >~>

 

[Smartz]

i'm not saying you should do stuff you don't like, nor should you be getting them in the first place
BUT there are also people like me who once they get into ES want to play something else other then 1v1 on certain stages only, and you basically want it to have a certain ruleset and i already know that will be 1v1 3 stock on certain stages am i right? no i don't think that's fair for people like me either who don't find 1v1 the most enjoyable 1 to be forced to play just that just cause i get in ES
can we at least agree on that we all should get the ruleset we want no matter what it is? cause ES or not people should be able to play it the way they want to. what's wrong with ranked having more rulesets then just 1? i don't find that a problem, the problem here is that people get rulesets they do not want >~>

I agree with most of this. People should be able to use whatever ruleset they want. On the flipside of that I don't think you should competitively use more then one ruleset.

In a competitive game there is a standard borderline ruleset that every match that is considered "ranked" has to follow. Sm4sh standard was 2 stock no items and like 7 minutes I think? Ultimates is three stocks 6 or 7 minutes (7 in my opinion should be a standard because it prevents camping) and once again Nintendo knows this. Why there aren't two separate modes like in Sm4sh I don't know but the only game that should count for elo (gsp) is a standard ruleset that the smash competitive community has agreed in consensus about. The game is why to quick to go for two stocks and this isn't Melee where if you get the right tech reads you can take a stock in 5 seconds, this is the in between.

Now with that said I'm not saying there shouldn't be a place for other people to play the game in a noncompetive manor, there should be, but not together with Quickplay.

I (god I cannot believe I'm using this games horrid ranked system as an example) sadly think Overwatch should just be an example. You got quickplay and comp. One where people just mess around and have fun and one where people scream into the mics and don't have fun, boom easy as pie.

EDIT: After reading quick note, wasn't meant to be some sort of diss on the casual community I started there, I think you guys should have just as much of a say as competitive players do when it comes to online situations like these.

 

[TheDuke54]

If Mars is going to have Earth ship it an orange, at that cost they might as well order an entire crates worth.

Dude I just did Smash online with my rule-setting. I only did 5 games, but none of them have my setting. Free for all, stock, no items. One was a team battle, the other was free for all cheesed, two were stamina, and one was free for all with all items, but I could had sworn I was fighting cpus with the way they all just didn't do anything remotely intelligent. They didn't take any initiative to fight, ran into each other, and side-b'ed off the ledge once or twice. I had to save the replay it was so comical.

 

[Smartz]

If Mars is going to have Earth ship it an orange, at that cost they might as well order an entire crates worth.

Dude I just did Smash online with my rule-setting. I only did 5 games, but none of them have my setting. Free for all, stock, no items. One was a team battle, the other was free for all cheesed, two were stamina, and one was free for all with all items, but I could had sworn I was fighting cpus with the way they all just didn't do anything remotely intelligent. They didn't take any initiative to fight, ran into each other, and side-b'ed off the ledge once or twice. I had to save the replay it was so comical.

When a player disconnects a lvl 3 CPU takes the players place. This is due to the basic AI in the game being based around a lvl 3 CPU.

 

[TheDuke54]

I know that, but when the game finished I went to the lobby to fight again and they were all ready to go.

Oh my god, I just tried to look for a free for all battle, but it gave me team again. I left and joined the same match, but it gave me the settings I wanted that time around. And the goofballs who were on the other team beforehand wouldn't stop just targeting me and the other dude. We were a team on the last match. And when he died they were adamant on just going after me. This is the reason this crap needs to be fixed. I got the match I wanted and everyone else was too clueless to be on board with it.

I lost of course and then they just stood still for like 30 seconds wondering what was going on. Don't strain your brain cells too much.

 

[Ze Diglett]

I know that, but when the game finished I went to the lobby to fight again and they were all ready to go.

Oh my god, I just tried to look for a free for all battle, but it gave me team again. I left and joined the same match, but it gave me the settings I wanted that time around. And the goofballs who were on the other team beforehand wouldn't stop just targeting me and the other dude. We were a team on the last match. And when he died they were adamant on just going after me. This is the reason this crap needs to be fixed. I got the match I wanted and everyone else was too clueless to be on board with it.

I lost of course and then they just stood still for like 30 seconds wondering what was going on. Don't strain your brain cells too much.

Funnily enough, the opposite happens to me when I look for team battles; I get matched into FFAs constantly where everyone just targets people randomly and, surprise surprise, the one guy who just runs away and lobs projectiles the entire game wins every time. It's why I exclusively go for 1v1's on the rare occasion that I do decide to take a chance on Quickplay, as it's basically all the mode's good for at this point. (And even then, I'll only resort to it if none of my friends are available to play and I've had enough of fighting CPUs.)

 

[Coolboy]

i get the feeling this matchmaking is getting worse..yesterday i got alot of what i didn't want.. timed matches even a few 1v1 matches here and there..team matches are still not that bad so i take it.. i ask for FFA with 3 stock any stage and most of the time i just don't get it..
and it annoys me more if i lose a match i didn't ask for then losing in a match i asked for....just so done with this bull**** -.-

and can someone tell me why in team matches i usually get the teammate with the low GSP? and the worst is my opponents know my teammate is easy to handle so they often go pick on him and try to keep me away..honestly it's not fun at all, plz can i get a teammate of the same level too? >.>
maaan this game just hates me period

i am not enjoying the game at all anymore..it's becoming a frustration..not cause of losing/winning
but losing cause of ****ty rulesets i didn't ask for does bother me though..if i got my preference everytime then i won't be whining..
oh and lets not forget if you get a stupid ruleset the game also punish YOU for losing with purposely taking so much GSP once again another middle finger..i am just so done with this online right now..i will probably focus on splatoon 2 again cause this starts to ruin my mood for real.

 

[Deleted member]

I've theorized that Sakurai tries to punish gamers for not playing SSB the way he originally envisioned. This is why tripping was added, and why Quickplay forces random rulesets on us (oddly Sm4sh was pretty accommodating to both casual and competitive, but I felt like the final bosses of single player were the manifestation of his revenge against the players). It's his way of getting back at us.

 

[TheDuke54]

I doubt that's what is happening. If that was truly their plan, they're doing a good job at ostracizing part of their community. And that is not a good message to send when competitive play is a scene with a lot of publicity. They even have tv shows dedicated to it now.

Something else I've noticed is that on free for all, when one of the players loses all of their stocks the game starts to lag badly. I always chalk it up as they left regardless of the penalty they'd get. But low and behold, they'd still be around for the next match. It always confused me that it seemed to happen as soon as someone was out of the game or pretty close to it.

That was until I read a comment from someone on discord who claimed to dismount the switch from the console dock and go as far away from their router/connection as they could to spite the others. Pretty cool we got to deal with people like that to, right?

I do agree though, it seems like online play is a lot more laggy then it was a few weeks ago. Every match I get is pretty bogged down.

 

[AbsyntheMinded]

Lol I've had the extreme lag thing happen as well but with 2 different events triggering it. 1 is during a regular 3 stock 1v1. Game start off just fine, you go up a stock and all of sudden it turns into lag central.

in the second scenario it's usually the 3 stock 3 minute games. Game starts fine, you go down 1 stock and all of a sudden the game starts mad lagging as the other dude just runs away for the remainder of the match. With the insane amounts of lag, the only hope you got to equalize is to chase him down and hope to hit him with something big to equalize.

I've played online games for a long time, and it has been a bit of a running joke when one team goes up and all of a sudden it starts lagging, you say "oh, they're winning and they flipped the lag switch" But i suppose in this game you actually can. You can just go as far away from your router as you can get, or deliberately go sit in a room/space that you know has bad wifi O_O

 

[Kiligar]

ARENA! All those problems are awful and I’ve had my fair share of elite smash slideshows, item spam and 12K GSP teammates, so until I’m tryhard enough to win in S flag slideshows I stick to arena to improve. I also hope 3.0.0 fixes the online.

 

[TheDuke54]

Glad I'm not the only one who experiences it and so the 'go as far away from the router' thing probably holds some merit.

Guys, I experimented with something. I have one fighter on quickplay who has really low gsp. They were 5,000 and up, but not quite to 10,000. Whenever my cousin's kid would come over he wanted to play so that was the fighter he tanked the gsp with. I decided I wanted to play with them and actually found their playstyle kind of fun to mess around with.

Turns out when the gsp is low, you don't get your preferred settings at all. I kept getting 1v1. Sometimes no items, sometimes items on, and two instances were cheesed 1v1 matches with assists and pokeballs on high.

So I leave the 1v1 match cause that's not what I want. And I end up getting sucked into a 1v1 with the same dude. And this wasn't an isolated incident cause every time the server would throw me back into the same match. Literally the worst lag I ever experienced to. And it's kind of hard to get your fighter out of that low gsp when the matches are so cheesed and laggy. I stopped the experiment when one dude lagged the entire match that he kicked us both and I got a penalty for his abysmal connection.

 

[Ze Diglett]

I honestly think there should be a button to reset a character's GSP to the default buried in the online settings somewhere. That way, you won't get stuck in a low-GSP hole forever if you lose just a few matches with a new character, and people online (hopefully) won't be as cowardly to preserve their GSP e-peen.

 

[TheDuke54]

I'd be up for that, cause Olimar seems like a fun fighter to mess around with, but sadly I'm stuck in low gsp with him lol. I'm not sure if it's because there's only so many users with gsp so low and they have no choice but to throw us into 1v1 or risk waiting 3-5 minutes to find a game. It's also worth noting that all the people I fought when it was 1v1 (and it was 3/4 of the match-ups during the experiment) were incredibly laggy.

I won more than half of the matches, but my gsp barely rose at all. And when I did lose, it would pretty much take all the points combined that I had won. So it's like a vicious cycle of being stuck in there. Plus after a while, getting stuck in matches you didn't want (when preferred rules was free for all) and each match having bad lag really wears my patience thin. It's a shame, cause I would had liked to use Olimar more online.

I also never saw any amount of users teabag as much as during this experiment. Almost feels like it should be deemed gsp hell akin to how smash hell was set up. Since I'd get matched with the same 1v1 player twice and three times on one occasion. I checked with my mains though and I wasn't in some kind of Ult smash hell thankfully.


Being able to reset gsp would be a good idea when you're too high and want some refreshers or want to get back to the default if you're too low. And maybe it takes a day to reset. Or instantaneous.

 

[Crazy Hand 2001]

I've theorized that Sakurai tries to punish gamers for not playing SSB the way he originally envisioned. This is why tripping was added, and why Quickplay forces random rulesets on us (oddly Sm4sh was pretty accommodating to both casual and competitive, but I felt like the final bosses of single player were the manifestation of his revenge against the players). It's his way of getting back at us.

you wager he should be fired after ultimate for going out his way to sabotage our fun right?

he probably should've been fired after brawl

 

[Deleted member]

Either way, I don't think Sakurai should do the next Smash. He doesn't like doing sequels anyway, which is why he left HAL. In fact, looking at the state of the Kirby franchise, I think it's in very good shape even though he hasn't been a part of it for a long time. Let's get someone else in charge who will prioritize good online play and give us more than 8 costumes.

 

[lucasla]

Well... Brawlhalla, a free indie game that has 300mb, and the same style of gameplay of Smash, has dedicated servers and doesnt lag. So, I can't accept any excuse. I just recently watched the video bellow and checked it by myself on my own Switch.

My experience hasn't been so bad as in this video for 1v1 matches (it's.. acceptable most of the times), but it's something similar on 4 player matches, that are always unplayable. But not in Brawlhalla, that I have no lag at all in any mode.

Again, a free indie title with dedicated servers and no lag and with a ridiculously lower investment.

 

[Ze Diglett]

Well... Brawlhalla, a free indie game that has 300mb, and the same style of gameplay of Smash, has dedicated servers and doesnt lag. So, I can't accept any excuse. I just recently watched the video bellow and checked it by myself on my own Switch.

My experience hasn't been so bad as in this video for 1v1 matches (it's.. acceptable most of the times), but it's something similar on 4 player matches, that are always unplayable. But not in Brawlhalla, that I have no lag at all in any mode.

Again, a free indie title with dedicated servers and no lag and with a ridiculously lower investment.

Wow... that's... seriously depressing. I don't even know what else to say about that. This is just baffling. How can a multi-billion dollar company fail at online functionality this hard and this consistently when even indie devs have been providing better service for years? I wanna love you, Nintendo, but when you make us pay extra for online service that's worse than what literally everyone else in the industry is doing, it makes it kind of hard to do that.

 

[Sucumbio]

It's possible that brawlhalla has significantly fewer players at the same time... My matches are rarely lagging except for peak times like when all the kids get home from school lol but at 1am it's fine.

 

[meleebrawler]

It's possible that brawlhalla has significantly fewer players at the same time... My matches are rarely lagging except for peak times like when all the kids get home from school lol but at 1am it's fine.

Smash and Brawlhalla are apples and oranges. The latter's built from the ground up to be an online experience and it's offline offerings are depressing in comparison. Can only do local vs. matches, training and tiny arcade modes, none of which earn you gold for perma-unlocking characters you want. Maybe some people around here aren't bothered by that but the strategy sure isn't what makes Smash a multi-million seller.

 

[Luigifan18]

Well... Brawlhalla, a free indie game that has 300mb, and the same style of gameplay of Smash, has dedicated servers and doesnt lag. So, I can't accept any excuse. I just recently watched the video bellow and checked it by myself on my own Switch.

My experience hasn't been so bad as in this video for 1v1 matches (it's.. acceptable most of the times), but it's something similar on 4 player matches, that are always unplayable. But not in Brawlhalla, that I have no lag at all in any mode.

Again, a free indie title with dedicated servers and no lag and with a ridiculously lower investment.

As someone who played Brawlhalla as a warm-up to prepare for the release of Smash Ultimate, I can confirm that the online infrastructure is solid — there's a clear divide between ranked and unranked, lag is uncommon, and the ranking system doesn't impose ridiculous punishments for losing. I’ve been saying that Smash should mimic the way Brawlhalla handles online for several months by now.

Smash and Brawlhalla are apples and oranges. The latter's built from the ground up to be an online experience and it's offline offerings are depressing in comparison. Can only do local vs. matches, training and tiny arcade modes, none of which earn you gold for perma-unlocking characters you want. Maybe some people around here aren't bothered by that but the strategy sure isn't what makes Smash a multi-million seller.

Yeah, that's also a completely valid point...

 

[AbsyntheMinded]

Wow... that's... seriously depressing. I don't even know what else to say about that. This is just baffling. How can a multi-billion dollar company fail at online functionality this hard and this consistently when even indie devs have been providing better service for years? I wanna love you, Nintendo, but when you make us pay extra for online service that's worse than what literally everyone else in the industry is doing, it makes it kind of hard to do that.

The answer to that is one of simple economics. Indie devs have next to no budget for advertising and no future if their title fails. So when their game gets released, everything better be tight and fully functional, and cater to the largest target audience (people who play online), or they go under. People won't just buy it because they know the name and franchise, and 1 or 2 bad reviews can be incredibly damning.

Nintendo on the other hands is a massive company. Yes they have fallen from glory since their 90's peak. But the switch has seen a return to the spotlight for them. Smash is a massive, generational franchise. Even if every game reviewer gave it 1/10 and said it was literally **** (which it isn't, mind) it would still sell millions of copies and nintendo would still make money.

I believe Ultimate is a great game, it has some things i take issue with (excessive buffering of moves), but I thoroughly enjoy playing it with my friends. It is just a dead shame it is marred by a, mostly, horrible online experience.

Smash and Brawlhalla are apples and oranges. The latter's built from the ground up to be an online experience and it's offline offerings are depressing in comparison. Can only do local vs. matches, training and tiny arcade modes, none of which earn you gold for perma-unlocking characters you want. Maybe some people around here aren't bothered by that but the strategy sure isn't what makes Smash a multi-million seller.

They are only apples and oranges in so far as their budget is concerned. Other than that, your point is moot. Brawlhalla has to make choices on what to prioritize and put in as they have limited funds. So they make the right choice and focus on the online experience, the person vs person content as that is what keeps people playing your fighting game and coming back.
Nintendo on the other hand has no such budgetary restrictions, and thus has no excuse for making a pathetically poor online experience. I also notice you seem to imply that smash is a multi million dollar selling franchise because of it's great single player content. I can't help but believe you are dead wrong about that.
No fighting game ever, has been a top seller because of great single player content. Fighting games live of person vs person competitiveness that is a part of human nature. You and your friend both have a controller and you'll sit there and play until you know who's best. Online games have just broadened that spectrum to you vs random dude online both have a controller and you're gonna sit there and play until you know who's best.

I have a few friends who play smash for fun, with no real interest in becoming competitive. They play it mostly against their friends when they come over and occasionally play the online mode. All of them have said they would play the online mode a bit more if it didn't feel so crap, but they don't right now because it often feels laggy and they don't know what kind of game they're going to get thrown into, so they feel it's a waste of their time. Time better spent on one of their other games. Not a single one of them has any interest at all in ever playing any of the single player content. World of light eats up too much time for really no reward and no one likes to just beat up a computer in classic mode, it gets boring real quick. The only reason they ever touched single player, was to unlock all the characters.

 

[lucasla]

It's possible that brawlhalla has significantly fewer players at the same time... My matches are rarely lagging except for peak times like when all the kids get home from school lol but at 1am it's fine.

This would imply that they created a game on a online system doomed to failure since the concept. If a game requires less players to have more probablility of them having better internet, and at the same time you need more players near you for a better p2p connection, this will never work. As you can check in Brawlhalla, servers would solve these problems. No need to defend Nintendo on this.