Why is online in this game so bad?

[Coolboy]

after yesterday i wished we had a ''what i DON'T want'' option instead of a ''what i want'' option..2 damn 1 stock battles, hell i just really despise those ALOT....i did win them but that's not the point..if we had a option for what we don't want then you wouldn''t be forced to go with 1 preference -.-

 

[Ξ◆ZENSHI◆Ξ]

Smash Ultimate's online mode is a mess.

 

[MetaGiga]

Smash Ultimate's online mode is a mess.

Maybe they’ll fix it up in the future? Hopefully this won’t be the norm.

 

[Ξ◆ZENSHI◆Ξ]

Maybe they’ll fix it up in the future? Hopefully this won’t be the norm.

I'm pretty convinced that Nintendo isn't going to make any impactful changes to their online mode, at least not for the better.

 

[Sans3546]

the online mode is one big mess to be honest. the literal best thing i can say about my experience with it is that i haven't experienced a game crash yet. unfortunately, that is literally the best thing that could be said for smash ultimate's online modes. there are so many things wrong with it.

for one, preferred rules is a mess. i want to use my competitive rule set similar to smash 4's for glory modes and nearly never get it. a study of 100 games i conducted showed that my competitively based preferred rule set will only see the light of day around 11% of the time. so many casual matches plaguing my experience. they're not even rule sets that can be considered close to competitively viable. over half of them are timed ffa matches on stupid stages with items turned on.

i have gone into this so many times before and don't wish to again, but buying the online service isn't worth it if your sole intention is to use it for smash ultimate's online. it's horrible at the moment.

 

[Veigar]

1. Unbearably laggy, kind of expected for Smash online play
2. Randomly got the smash 64 zelda stage with the tornados... was really weird
3. Most people just try to cheese GSP, I think getting rid of GSP and Elite Smash as well as things like win rate would make it better. Just have a for fun and for glory mode where you can play people, ranking systems are always asking for trouble.

 

[Ze Diglett]

Yeah, Ultimate's online is pretty dreadful, at least the quickplay portion. Battle Arenas are pretty alright, even if they aren't exactly perfect, but quickplay is actually starting to make me miss For Glory and For Fun, which is something I never thought I would say. Polarizing as they were, at least those modes appealed to hardcore fans and hyper casuals respectively; in quickplay, no matter what ruleset you prefer, you're bound to be thrown into dumb **** like 1-stock matches or 3 minute FFAs that no one actually enjoys and there's not much you can do about it. It really sucks that we're paying extra for online service that's arguably worse than when it was free.
And the whole mode would honestly be better off if GSP wasn't a part of it, but that's just my take.

 

[Idon]

Just steal the ranked and unranked mode from... any fighting game made within the last decade.

I mean hell, steal it from Splatoon or Mario Tennis Aces or Pokken.
Those all WORK at the very least.

 

[Mental Surge]

will someone please explain to me why you can still get items and smash balls in elite smash? Or why you can get maps with stage hazards? Or 3 stock/ 3 minutes? Or 1 stock games? I'm also getting really sick of playing on BF.

Also, WHY DOES SUDDEN DEATH EXIST IN ELITE SMASH? There's a reason in tournaments the victor is the one that does the most damage if they are even on stocks yet apparently nintendo has not caught on. You gotta love it when your opponent just runs away from you for the last 30 seconds so they can win in SD.

Another thing, why does it not save your skin half the time? Sometimes it doesnt even save your control setup. No joke, this has happened around 5 times to me despite the fact that when checking my control profile I can see that the proper one is selected.

 

[Erimir]

will someone please explain to me why you can still get items and smash balls in elite smash? Or why you can get maps with stage hazards? Or 3 stock/ 3 minutes? Or 1 stock games?

Probably because someone else in Elite Smash wants to play with them.

Elite Smash doesn't really mean anything. I'm not sure it even means you can only play against other Elite Smash players, but my impression is that that's all it is: you'll only be paired with other Elite Smash-level GSP players. Or perhaps it's just treated like another preferred rule option - it might consider someone outside Elite Smash to be further distance from your preferred rules than someone who's in Elite Smash but wants to play with a couple different rules.

But either way, if you are in Elite Smash, and want to play with items and hazards, then you will still be able to do so. It doesn't deactivate Elite Smash based on your chosen rules.

 

[ItsLogic]

Honestly I would agree that online has it's problems at they moment, like when Nintendo pairs you in a free-for-all when you probably put 1 on 1 and there could also be some connectivity issues and sometimes it could also wrongfully kick you out. But even though Online is Smash Ultimate really sucks right now, I'm sure it'll get better eventually, this is Nintendo we're talking about, we'll get a better Online one day.

 

[Oneiros5321]

Do a lot of people still have issues with getting paired in 4 players FFAs though?
I mean, since the 1.2 patch, I did get a few items matches (not many really) but the only way for me to find a 4 players FFA match is to set my preferred rules to that.

Also, laggy matches don't happen a lot really. If it's consistant then the problem probably comes from your connections. I'd say that 90% of the matches so far are lag free for me (well, almost, there's still the slight input lag), using a LAN adapter.

Connection issues during a match most likely would come from using WiFi as it's really not stable (because your router doesn't lost the connection doesn't mean that it's stable).

My only issue with the online so far is the lack of official ruleset.
I know a lot of people wouldn't like that, but I would love to have a real competitive mode that would force people into 7 minutes, 3 stocks, best of 3.

 

[MG_3989]

Lag hasn’t been a huge problem with me, maybe 1 out of every 4 or 5 games will lag but maybe it helps living in an area with a ton of population around and having really good wired internet. My main problem with online is the odd match I’ll run into with all stages, smash balls, and items on or even worse the 3 minute 3 stock cheese matches. I don’t really care about my rank but I have to say it’s really annoying losing GSP to a 3 minute 3 stock game on New Donk City. I just want play 6 or 7 minute 3 stock matches, no items, no smash balls, on battlefield or FD stage forms (I wish we could use other fair stages but Nintendo can’t even get it right with FD and Battlefield so I won’t even ask for that)

 

[Perfect patricia]

The game says unstable connection is bad and every single match of mine is laggy and I’m pretty sure it’s my internet. There isn’t much I can do to fix it and I don’t want to make 2min matches into 10min matches for other players so I think I should just play a different game

 

[UltimateXsniper]

I wouldn't say you should quit, if you're all about online and don't care about single player than I don't really have much to tell you. It's completely up to you but I'm sure you could find locals to join in or and possibly make friends with people who play the same game.

 

[lucasla]

I already gave up on trying to play matches of 2v2 of 4 players free for all. It just doesnt work properly, they are boring and unplayable because of the lag and this stupid way they choosed their online game to work. Some times I still starts one of these matches just to check if something has changed, but until now, it's just bad.

But I can still play good 1v1 matches, not all of them are flawless, but most of them are playable and some run pretty great. I dont like to be limited this way, to only be able to play 1v1, but I also feel it's not my fault and there's nothing I can do about it. I already have a lan adapter (that helped nothing), all other online games I play on my PC and PS4 are running perfectly (and I play them in WiFi on other room, while my router is at the side of my Switch), so, I can only assume it is a problem with the Smash P2P system that is terrible, and nothing will change my mind that they should had used dedicated servers, cause smash is the ONLY game I have problems.

Well, try playing only 1v1 matches too if that help you too, if not, dont blame your internet. All other games probably run perfectly on your internet. Unless you really have some problem, it's fault of the smash developers.

 

[Coolboy]

maybe it's my mindset but i don't expect to just play 1 mode online and that's all i wanna play, i mean is it really that big of a deal if you have to play FFA or a 3 stock match with items a few times? x.x
look i get it if you really despise playing with items then sure it's understandable but if your mindset is ''all i wanna play is 3 stock without items and nothing else!'' then maybe you have to become a little more easy going...
a match is a match, if your good then you will win no matter what type of match it is right?

 

[Oneiros5321]

maybe it's my mindset but i don't expect to just play 1 mode online and that's all i wanna play, i mean is it really that big of a deal if you have to play FFA or a 3 stock match with items a few times? x.x
look i get it if you really despise playing with items then sure it's understandable but if your mindset is ''all i wanna play is 3 stock without items and nothing else!'' then maybe you have to become a little more easy going...
a match is a match, if your good then you will win no matter what type of match it is right?

Yeah, I don't think you get the idea right.
I, and most of us I am sure, don't mind FFA or items matches. What bothers me is that I want to be able to decide what I'm going to play.
If I'm in the mood to play some casual stuff, I wanna be sure I am going to end up in a casual match with items.
If I wanna play competitive, I wanna be sure I'm going to end up in a match at 3 stocks 7 minutes or so.

The problem is not that people don't wanna play casual or don't wanna play competitive. Imagine if you're up for some classic mode and the game is like "lol nope, you're going to play Spirit board now". Same idea, if I'm in a mindset to play something, I don't want the game to make me play something else.

And actually, you highlighted the issue by saying "I don't expect to just play 1 mode online"....me neither, so why is there only 1 mode? (Battle Arenas excluded)

 

[Vinman712]

I hit 1 on 1, I got free for all 5 games in a row. I guess I can't play online for this game, that sucks.

Personally i cant stand online. I choose 1v1 omega no items. What fo i get? Oh, a 1v1 on ****ing great cave offensive with ALL ITEMS ON. What actual cretins play with items, seriously?! But anyways i feel your pain man, i wish it was fixed.

 

[lucasla]

Personally i cant stand online. I choose 1v1 omega no items. What fo i get? Oh, a 1v1 on ****ing great cave offensive with ALL ITEMS ON. What actual cretins play with items, seriously?! But anyways i feel your pain man, i wish it was fixed.

The bad part is that the option to play the way you want is there, the arenas. But is so much painful to just need to create an arena all the time, or needing to spend time and effort just making us have the work to look for good arenas or waiting in lines or in empty arenas that no one joins.. It's a unnecessary, punishing work that the game give to us for no reason at all. The last thing I want when I start an online game is need to hunt players to play with me, I just want to select a few options and let the game have this work to me, if I cant, I will just not play cause there are no benefits in stress me looking for matches. It wouldn't make any harm to the game just having some "for-glory" default ruleset. It just needs to be a mandatory ruleset while people looking for matches in quickplay with rulesets on or off could still join, but not the opposite.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Online really is bad. And it's not the bad in the way some of you spam 'lel git gud' too. I don't have problems winning, I have problems having fun and getting in real practice against people of my skill level.

The game flat out does not give a damn about your preferred ruleset, but the guys playing Ridley and DeDeDe who only want to play on walkoffs to cheese it? They get it. It's not a matter of GSP either, these people get carried all the way to Elite Smash because their cheese straight up works evidently. These people are some of the freest wins I've ever had in Smash, but I can't think of a single second of fun I had playing them.

This is a whopping 80%+ of my matches. It's not an isolated incident, nor is it a problem with GSP matching. The preferred ruleset doesn't mean jack if you don't get to host, and for whatever reason the host of the match is always the guy with internet causing full blown 5+ second lag spikes. This is abysmal, in no way is it okay, it's going to muck up the early meta for newer players and it's just overall bad.

I've played a lot of games with online elements, and I thought I had seen some crap.. but not until now. It's not that any one aspect of the online in Smash right now is so horrible it kills it, it all adds up to a really poor experience. Not everybody has locals to join, including me in my small town, nor do they have a massive circle of friends. Online is the bread and butter of my practice, and for a lot of other people I'm sure.. and yet it's by far the worst part of the game. Worse than even Spirit Mode with its event matches against 9 Metal Megamen. So it's avoided like the plague by many.

I make this thread because I've heard several people claim it's 'fixed' and it isn't even close, and every topic discussing this issue I could find was locked with what few posts existing in it comprising entirely of passive aggressive 'git guds' or 'lel u n evry1 else' posts before the lock occurs. There is no legitimate discussion happening in those scenarios, zero. If I try to post on Reddit the spam filter catches it. Just because the issue is widespread doesn't mean you need to hammer down every instance of discussion around it that pops up. That just compounds the issue with poor awareness because discussion on the matter is being hindered. This problem is beyond people spamming online, those always have and always will exist. They're free wins most of the time if you have any experience dealing with that sort of thing, especially on certain characters. The problem is, that there's ALWAYS a problem. If it's not a spammer, it's lag. If it's not lag, it's a cheeselord. If it's not a cheeselord, oh well it's WORSE LAG!

So, to Battle Arenas I have been consigned, where my wins are meaningless and I have no clue how I'm truly doing against the current community and meta because ranked matchmaking doesn't exist there. Truly, the perfect system.. jesus.

 

[Luigifan18]

If this isn’t locked, it's probably getting merged with something.

 

[DelugeFGC]

If this isn’t locked, it's probably getting merged with something.

I'm 100% down with a merge, it was just that every instance of this I could find was locked already or wasn't really talking about it in the matter I am.

I'm not taking issue with scrubs online, or any of that. My beef is 100% with the matchmaking system itself. Scrubs will always be scrubs, but there is seemingly no way to filter the game to the point where matches you actually like to play happen regularly, and if a miracle occurs lag usually ruins it.

This is also what I meant. My post isn't what gets responded to, not even with a generic copy and pasted response.. I just got what I already stated as the obvious. I wish hitting the nail on the head actually felt good.

 

[Sco7t]

Prior to 2.0.0 I would disagree with you. After it however? Anecdotally (which, yeah, not the best data), I've been finding myself going against weird rulesets more often. Items, finals smashes, hazards off, hazards on, plenty of 2 stock games, running into all of those regularly now.

 

[Quist]

Maybe my internet is just better than most - but after that first patch. My quick play matches are like 98% solid connection. Maybe 1/50 I play against some random ass rule set. Not a huge deal!

 

[Oneiros5321]

Maybe my internet is just better than most - but after that first patch. My quick play matches are like 98% solid connection. Maybe 1/50 I play against some random *** rule set. Not a huge deal!

Yeah same here, I don't suffer much from lag.
I'd say it's a bit more for the ruleset though, also noticed that close to Elite and at low GSP are the 2 places where I encounter the most random rulesets. It's pretty much only 1v1 from 2 to 3 million.

Also, laggy matches happen almost always around 3 million. You can easily see the people cheating their way through the ranks.

 

[DelugeFGC]

Yeah same here, I don't suffer much from lag.
I'd say it's a bit more for the ruleset though, also noticed that close to Elite and at low GSP are the 2 places where I encounter the most random rulesets. It's pretty much only 1v1 from 2 to 3 million.

Also, laggy matches happen almost always around 3 million. You can easily see the people cheating their way through the ranks.

My roster GSP is 3.1M and I get rulesets like this all the time, my best character GSP (ironically because I wanted to be LEL DISRESPECT KING which stuck me playing Ganon for elites, I've since went to other characters as he's far from my main in this game, so I'm a bit out of the Elite loop) is 4.2M with Ganon and I have found the 4 threshold pretty much weeded out the cheesers because while their cheese can and will carry them a GOOD ways into the GSP thresholds, it does appear to stop.. or at least DID. You'd think eventually they'd find a real pro who destroys them (i.e. anybody worth half their salt in Smash) and that would shut it down, but I guess they don't learn? Problem is, even if half the people you meet spank you, if you're cheesing the hell out of the other half it can seem like what you're doing is working.. just needs some fine tuning.

Then these people go to tournaments and get bodied in pools, going 0-2 pretty much right off the bat. I know the cycle, it's just irritating to have to constantly play against. I also worry that newer players might get an odd meta going because the cheese they encounter right off the line when online is going to condition most of them a certain way. That's going to make a lot of the new blood in comps start badly, and there's enough smack talkers who turn up to one tournament in their life before getting bodied and dropping out forever as-is. Sure, it's funny, but it's also bad for the community overall. New blood is always good, and we need good new blood.

I also quite often get matched with people whose character GSP varies wildly from mine, I've even matched against a 300Ker in regular Quickplay as a 2.9M character. Those people seem to cheese a lot too in order to turn their losing streak around, guess they just ragequit and give in?

I really don't know the nuances nor do I know the how's and the why's of all this. I just know I don't have any sort of good local group to practice in, and when you body 85% of the people you meet because they cheese and don't play for real, it doesn't build up much if any skill at all. That's kind of going to leave your skill level flatlining, if not outright worsening it because of the conditioning. I see it no different than people playing many games against CPU's, this kind of crap DOES condition you at a certain point if not making an actively aware effort to remember "Hey, most people with brains don't play like this and have real neutral game and combo game" in order to curb the BS.

So you go to Battle Arenas.. where there is no sort of matchmaking at all. See a stranger's arena? Great, some games! Only now you go in and it's the 12th best Falco on the planet and he just destroys you. Alternatively, it's the scrubbiest of scrublords who just sits there and spams PK Fire. There is absolutely ZERO consistency to BA's, because there isn't really meant to be. It's unranked, so of course it is inconsistent at best. I'm not salty over that.

The problem is, I get very little extra consistency out of quickplay and even elite. This didn't used to be that big of an issue, of course every once in a blue moon I'd end up on a FD with a Little Mac spamming dash attacks, tilts and side B's.. but that mostly went away as the GSP climbed. Now, not sure if it coincided with 2.0.0 or not, but.. it's back. With a vengeance.

I'm also 100% sure that some people are going in with terrible internet intentionally so they can whiff up their opponents enough to get easy wins. I'm used to playing through lag, I was a dial-up kid in my early gaming years, but when the game stops for 5+ seconds STRAIGHT.. it's another story. As somebody who sold their soul to Dark Souls for a good point, I'm very intimate with Peer 2 Peer connections in PvP games and I know why they're preferred.. but at this point, I'll take the extra input lag from a Dedicated Server, it's gotten beyond the point of ridiculous. I'm now going to have to go out and spend money on a LAN adapter, after already spending money on the Switch, the game and Nintendo online.. getting real tired of paying to play games at even the basic level when I've been gaming long enough to know that there was a time when this BS wasn't the norm.

480 mb/s internet and my Switch pulls like 40 mb/s peak on Download and maybe 6mb/s on upload. Whoever designed the wireless for this thing should lose their job and be ostracized from the gaming industry, it is THAT bad. On top of that, the online situation in Ultimate just makes it all a very special kind of mess that makes me want to Smash the wall instead of my opponent.

 

[Noss92]

It's simple: putting EVERY player under the same matchmaking was the worst idea possible they could've thought, causing idiotic matches with lame rules. Casual and competitive players must be separated to let them both enjoy the game in the way they like to play. Now that the game sold tons of copies, there's no fear to slow matchmaking (and there's also the background play anw!) so they should re work the online, with separate casual and competitive mode. I think this is the first thing they need to do to improve this mess

 

[Oneiros5321]

480 mb/s internet and my Switch pulls like 40 mb/s peak on Download and maybe 6mb/s on upload. Whoever designed the wireless for this thing should lose their job and be ostracized from the gaming industry, it is THAT bad. On top of that, the online situation in Ultimate just makes it all a very special kind of mess that makes me want to Smash the wall instead of my opponent.

Saddly this isn't a WiFi issue. My connection is "only" 150mbps but even with a LAN adapter, it doesn't go higher than 40 on my Switch.
That being said, this speed is way more than enough to play online games so I'm not complaining much about it.
I think a LAN adapter is essential to play any P2P game anyway as even if your WiFi speed was as high as your internet allows it, WiFi is still unstable, regardless of the speed (well, especially for me since I live in a building and lots of interferences are coming from all the apartments around).

As for the tournaments part, I can't say much as I never went to one and I honestly don't think people online who're cheesing their way through Elite Smash go to them. I don't even assume they think they're good, it's just a matter of "who got the biggest one" in my opinion.

I do agree that the matchmaking feels worse than before since 2.0.0. I am also matched against 200 or 300k GSP player while being between 3 and 3.5 million. Introducing lag and rulesets I don't want to play with.

I've also seen a lot of weird "communication error" message since the patch. Something that I barely ever got before. Now it's a few per gameplay session. Which doesn't affect me much since it's always outside of a match but I do find it weird and that it might be an indication that something weird was introduce with this new patch.

Honestly, all I want for this game is to have a way to check the opponent connection before the match starts and also a dedicated competitive mode with his own ranking system.

 

[Great Potato]

I think a big problem with online is it doesn't have a casual mode. There should be casual and ranked, but instead there's just ranked and the alternative is Battle Arena's which carries a slew of its own problems.

In Smash Bros. there's always going to be players whose ideal time in the game is a free for all match with items everywhere, and that used to be tucked away in a separate slot under "For Fun" completely removed from the "For Glory" which was no item matches on omega variant stages. In Smash Ultimate all of the players who enjoyed For Fun and all of the players who preferred For Glory are now all bunched together in a single category under Quickplay, and I can't be mad at those players when it's the game that told them the chaotic item matches they enjoy are now part of ranked play.

I myself am guilty often turning levels on in my preferred rules. I can get bored FD and BF exclusively and like mixing things up with some variety like Pokémon Stadium, Lylat Cruise, Town & City, Halberd, Duck Hunt, and so I go for it even if it comes with the gamble of getting something silly like FlatZone or losing a match to the bird on Magicant. I don't know if I'm just lucky but the game never hands me massive stages like Temple or New Pork City and I've been pretty good about getting opponents who fight the center and don't camp the walk-off if we get them. Though I can end up feeling guilty when I get a win on a place like Balloon Fight that's pretty much impossible not to cheese, if online worked as it should I would only getting players who also chose to include level variety, or if there was a casual mode I could have some fun there with matches when I want to take a break from Omega variant competitive rules in ranked.

 

[Noss92]

I do actually like this quickplay format, i mean, i like to casually jump into a match and see what kind of rules i will meet. But again, only under a casual perspective. This quickplay is cool for a "for fun" mode

 

[DelugeFGC]

The current quickplay system feels very much like For Fun in 4, though I really do not envy the For Glory days either. You'll see plenty of battlefield stages in comps, Omega / FD isn't the only way to go and in Ultimate with hazards that can be disabled, god knows what we'll end up with when TO's are done feeling it all out. There's a reason walkoffs are general frowned upon, however, and with characters like Ridley and DeDeDe they automatically have an advantage (doesn't matter on the skill side, if the map favors your pick.. it favors it) on those types of stages that they don't otherwise have. No longer does a Ridley have to worry about Side-Bing off stage (unless that was their intention), as they can just Side-B their opponent once and the minimal knockback from it is sometimes enough to close the distance between where they end up vs. the blast zone on the side. This stuff is obvious so I won't drone on about it any longer.

I'm worried that eventually we'll see another splitting of the online, and while that CAN work.. the worry is they'll default back to the Smash 4 system. Stocks go by too fast in Ultimate for 2-stock to be the go-to ruleset, and FD-only is going to promote cheesing even harder with the amount of zoners / projectile characters in this game (this is coming from a guy who mains them, too) and I really can't think of a ton of times I beat someone in For Glory quickplay and thought "Damn! That was a good match." to add to that. There has got to be a happy middle ground they can find.

Saddly this isn't a WiFi issue. My connection is "only" 150mbps but even with a LAN adapter, it doesn't go higher than 40 on my Switch.
That being said, this speed is way more than enough to play online games so I'm not complaining much about it.
I think a LAN adapter is essential to play any P2P game anyway as even if your WiFi speed was as high as your internet allows it, WiFi is still unstable, regardless of the speed (well, especially for me since I live in a building and lots of interferences are coming from all the apartments around).

As for the tournaments part, I can't say much as I never went to one and I honestly don't think people online who're cheesing their way through Elite Smash go to them. I don't even assume they think they're good, it's just a matter of "who got the biggest one" in my opinion.

I do agree that the matchmaking feels worse than before since 2.0.0. I am also matched against 200 or 300k GSP player while being between 3 and 3.5 million. Introducing lag and rulesets I don't want to play with.

I've also seen a lot of weird "communication error" message since the patch. Something that I barely ever got before. Now it's a few per gameplay session. Which doesn't affect me much since it's always outside of a match but I do find it weird and that it might be an indication that something weird was introduce with this new patch.

Honestly, all I want for this game is to have a way to check the opponent connection before the match starts and also a dedicated competitive mode with his own ranking system.

Thing is, it's not really a matter of how many players will go on to compete, it's more a matter of damned near EVERY player who does will probably try to get in practice via the online.. at least at first. So while everyone on quickplay is obviously not gonna go to tournaments.. just about every player who does WILL have played the online which opens up the possibility of being conditioned by this crap.

Imagine this, you go online for the first time and right of the gate you're dropped into a hellscape where items rain from the skies like candy, smash balls hover around lighting up the air and four players all chaotically ram into one another until eventually it slowly becomes a 1 v 1 (unless it's timed) where things tend to get more serious and refined. You, like many, will probably think "Well screw that." and go play with the rules. You'll set up your rules and go try to find another game, this time with your rules. Right off the bat you're thrown into a 1v1 so that's progress.. but it's on a walkoff with smash balls on, 1 stock, against a Mii Swordfighter main who watched that one ZeRo video and keeps trying to set up that same busted kill confirm. You only have one chance to screw up and die to it before it's over, and you probably do if this is your first time online as you're probably new in general.

There are two paths you can now take. You can either go on banging your head against a wall like I have because you KNOW playing like that doesn't work out in the long run and will get you destroyed against anybody with even a modicum of skill.. or you can give into the cheese thinking "Guess this is what works / how people play." and potentially get carried as high as 3.5M+ GSP before you encounter a high enough degree of people who will inevitably body you and make you realize this doesn't fly. Only, if you still win games (mostly as a result of bad matchings GSP wise or encountering a fellow cheeser) at even a decent ratio.. you'll probably think what you're doing DOES work and just needs to be refined / fine tuned. This carries the chance that people like this will get turned out of Smash Online and think they're 10/1 ratio gods, however small it may be, and those kinds of people come into comps enough. It's literally over half of pools these days, and it kind of feels like you're just fighting BS until you pass the threshold to be allowed real matches. It's not fun online, it's not fun there and it's bad for the community as a whole. Is this likely? No, god no.. but think of how many people play Ultimate. It's HUGE, and even 1/500 or 1/1000 could produce some really toxic chunks of people, or people who are NOT by any means at ALL toxic and just think that's the meta, then they go on to get wrecked and demoralized beyond belief because their entire world view is shattered and they just quit. That happens a lot too, seen a lot of first timers go 0-2 and call it quits, and evidently they meant it because I never saw them again.

I don't go to big tournaments or anything so I can't comment on what goes down there, but this kind of stuff already plagues locals enough when I can drive the hour to go to them, and the online is actively encouraging it. It's just demoralizing all around.

Enough to make me quit? Hell no, this game has bonded with my soul in a way I'm not even sure I'm entirely okay with, so letting it go is just.. LOL. But, it's irritating as hell. I was born with a voice and fingers, and I am only human.. so you can guess what I'm gonna do. Complain, a LOT.

 

[thomasgamer4000]

I just got disconnected and banned probably because my opponent was far away.
on spectate I noticed Japanese was put up against america
there's no option to only make it regional

 

[DelugeFGC]

I just got disconnected and banned probably because my opponent was far away.
on spectate I noticed Japanese was put up against america
there's no option to only make it regional

I've since went LAN (and btw, I get around 100mb/s on LAN, not 40ish like was said above.. so something is up there with his adapter, console or SOMETHING. I think WD made a video on this phenomena) and while I don't have nearly as many of the lag issues OR the ruleset problems (I think the system gives priority of hosting (i.e. the ruleset that gets used) to the player with the better connection by default, which could explain my rules ALWAYS getting shafted) the disconnects do still happen and my GOD it is infuriating..

I don't care about the GSP loss, I've been banging against my head against this wall so long my ratio is in a good place and my gains and losses are realistic (I know some gain / lose over 1M in early matches.. which is stupid as hell) and don't mess with my overall a ton.. but I REALLY don't want to get banned.

 

[Oneiros5321]

I've since went LAN (and btw, I get around 100mb/s on LAN, not 40ish like was said above.. so something is up there with his adapter, console or SOMETHING. I think WD made a video on this phenomena)

He did...what is the maximum speed of your connection? I've noticed that many people with like a 300 or 400mbps connection get close to 100mbps. While I get 40 to 50 mbps with my max connection being 150 mbps...it seems to take only a ratio of what your connection is capable of.

Also, I don't think priority is given to the best connection. I've been hosting Battle Arena, playing with friends and never had a single even tiny bit of lag so my connection is solid for online play and yet, I still get lag every now and then in quickplay with rulesets that are not mine (difference being Battlefield vs Omega most of the time...I hate playing on Battlefield, it's just unfair for some characters).

 

[DelugeFGC]

He did...what is the maximum speed of your connection? I've noticed that many people with like a 300 or 400mbps connection get close to 100mbps. While I get 40 to 50 mbps with my max connection being 150 mbps...it seems to take only a ratio of what your connection is capable of.

Also, I don't think priority is given to the best connection. I've been hosting Battle Arena, playing with friends and never had a single even tiny bit of lag so my connection is solid for online play and yet, I still get lag every now and then in quickplay with rulesets that are not mine (difference being Battlefield vs Omega most of the time...I hate playing on Battlefield, it's just unfair for some characters).

And FD isn't? They both cause matchup jank with certain characters, which is why it's not a de-facto one-or-the-other in comps. Zoners / trappers have a immediate advantage on FD stages. Characters like Little Mac who are 100% ground-based get screwed by BF type.. goes both ways.

480mb/s, though realistically I get like 410ish. I've looked into it to a degree, there doesn't seem to be a lot of consistency to this. Some people get great connections on LAN, some people get little to zero improvement.. then some people start out in one camp and get moved to the other later (like WD).

Something is going on with the host priority, it's way too big a coincidence otherwise. Literally the moment I plugged my Switch into the intromnetz via the LAN adapter I stopped having 95% of the issues I was having online, but at the same time it does jack for other people. I truly do not know what to make of the enigma that is online on the Switch / in Ultimate.

 

[Zawaz132]

I had decent experience online since the game came out, wasn't sure what everyone was complaining about... Until last week.
Nearly every game for the past week has absolutely not been my preference. I get either 1 or 2 stocks, 1 or 2 minute matches where the opponent picks a speedy character and runs to time out and win in sudden death, or just straight up janky items only on high. My last game was a laggy lowlife who had S-flags on high for 2 minutes. He got one extra stock and ran to time out. I bet he's proud of his GSP... And Nintendo not only allows all of this, but encourages it with their system.

 

[TheDuke54]

I read most of the replies here and it is unbelievably idiotic how terrible online is. You can't really choose what mode you want. Want to do 1 vs 1? To bad you get free for all. Want to just chill now all of a sudden? Nope you get to go against competitive smashers.

It's gotten better from when I first booted it up when I got it for Xmas. The lag kind of sucks still, but thankfully I didn't get any instances where I was kicked from the game (as in everyone gets kicked because someone had a garbage connection) That was until today. And what is the best way to deal with this, says Nintendo. That's easy, punish the player who has a decent connection as well as the garbage tier connection player.

I figured I would be disciplined, but I tried to go back online and now have to wait an hour. Smash Wii U had matches where it was an endless load at the start of the match or anywhere else and finally the game would just kick everyone. You'd never get banned for that. Now we get banned because it can't tell the difference between an unstable connection dropping everyone and someone just quitting.

I bailed on some matches yes, because the lag was horrendous and so I kept getting a slap on the wrist and more time on my ban. So I stopped doing that and decided I would just deal with it. I can't change fighters, I can't leave a match before it starts, can't suicide to end a terrible lag fest, so whatever just deal with it. Powers outside of my control? That's punishable of course.

Nintendo needs to get their crap together and fast. I am not touching online at all, because like Wii U this lags and there's always the chance of the match just dropping us all.

 

[Jovahexeon Joranvexeon]

This is becoming a mind****, but yes, somewhere in there is the option to toggle off stages from being randomly selected within Arenas; I thought staind was referring to quickplay anyway.

What I'm searching for is the option to pick spirits properly when in arenas and not having to resort to auto pick. :U

 

[Oneiros5321]

Also something that's been happening to me since the patch 2.0.0, I keep getting matched against people at 3.5 or 3.6 million.
This was my threshold, the best I could do be at was 3.4 million. After that, I'm usually getting wrecked.
Even though I get back to 2.5, 2 million, the game keeps matching me against 3.5/3.6 million. It's really annoying, those people are most of the time much better than me.
I'm not playing to win or anything and I don't have time to take the game seriously to the point where I'm going to spend 3 hours a day in training. I'm playing for fun and getting murdered in a match is just not fun (getting a 3 stock on someone isn't fun neither honestly).

It feels like the game is matching me against people at the highest level I've ever been, but maybe me reaching that GSP was just luck. I clearly don't have same level as the people I'm fighting most of the time and the game has just become boring and frustrating since a few days.

The matchmaking felt much more balanced in the previous patch tbh, it's just a mess now.