Zelda Balance and MU Learning

[otheusrex]

How do we know though that so many people actually hate her? I mean I've heard small talk about it but I think we would want to be sure that that is indeed the case before we would act upon such a notion for working with her design, you know?.

This is just my experience, but everyone in my smash group definitely hates her.

The role of a heel in wrestling is that of a villain, opposed by the crowd favorite character.... ...Zelda is like a wrestling villain in Project M, she fights dirty, she is the character you love to hate. She is the one you want to see LOSE.

Um, I really don't want that for Zelda.

On a different note, I hear a lot of people calling for her to remain the same, but I don't think 3.0 Zelda is good enough to compete in the long run. If they kept her current design, I think she'd still need certain buffs. I know that we've seen some high level representation for her recently, but remember zhime vs m2k? Zhime did great and almost won, but against a player who has no qualms against playing carefully and not playing into zelda's hands, she really doesn't have any good options to ensure victory.

The reason why fox/sheik and other top tiers are so good is that they have excellent attributes combined with many moves that have little or no exploitable weaknesses; no matter how much mu knowledge people have, no one can contest the power and functionality of fox's upsmash or shine.

The reason why Zelda is so weak is because she has bad attributes combined with many moves that have simple 1 method ways of getting around or even punishing them, which will be exploited more and more as people learn the mu. I think we ended up with this because originally, they tried to make a handful of moves so good by themselves that they would elevate a bad character. Let me make a metaphor: Zelda's overall capability is a blanket, and her moves are individual strings attached to it. The pmbr tried to lift the blanket with a few strings, which does elevate it, but also creates wide troughs of mediocre ability and a few narrow peaks of super ability. When the pmbr understandably tried to bring the individual power of some of her moves back down to normal levels, it was like giving her opponents scissors to cut them down.

Look at naryu's love, for example. It has good capabilities when successful, but a very simplistic (actually a few) means of punishing it directly. The arial version trades so poorly that an opponent can throw out a lingering hitbox before the attack frames and punish it without even having to time it very much. Mango even falcon up b'd zhime's love jump. And this weakness is on top of being shield grab-able and not even guaranteed a followup on a successful land-cancel. I'm expecting a response to this being "yes, but how often do you see people exploiting this weakness?" and "why shouldn't it have a way to counteract it; it'd be broken otherwise." My response to this is that the metagame hasn't developed enough to see people spamming this strategy. Also, if fox's shine had such a simple way of getting around it, such as being sheild grab-able, then people would be exploiting that weakness all over the place. My point is that Moves That Have Simple Exploitable Weaknesses Are Inferior to Those That Do Not, and since pretty much all of Zelda's moves have multiple simple strategy weaknesses to counterbalance them, I feel we can objectively say that in a set where both players have even mu knowledge, she will be at a distinct disadvantage.

 

[I Dair You]

After 5 pages of replies, I have yet to hear a top level player argue that Zelda should be changed. It just seems like most people are not fine with the current Zelda because she's "not fun to fight" Boo Hoo. The PMBR simply fails at playtesting if it took Zhime using Zelda at a high level to show what she could do. If they're indeed gonna redesign a character thats been around since Demo 1, I can only imagine who will be redesigned next.

 

[I Dair You]

double post * sorry

 

[Pika_thunder]

This is just my experience, but everyone in my smash group definitely hates her.



Um, I really don't want that for Zelda.

On a different note, I hear a lot of people calling for her to remain the same, but I don't think 3.0 Zelda is good enough to compete in the long run. If they kept her current design, I think she'd still need certain buffs. I know that we've seen some high level representation for her recently, but remember zhime vs m2k? Zhime did great and almost won, but against a player who has no qualms against playing carefully and not playing into zelda's hands, she really doesn't have any good options to ensure victory.

The reason why fox/sheik and other top tiers are so good is that they have excellent attributes combined with many moves that have little or no exploitable weaknesses; no matter how much mu people have, no one can contest the power and functionalist of fox's upsmash or shine.

The reason why Zelda is so weak is because she has bad attributes combined with many moves that have simple 1 method ways of getting around or even punishing them, which will be exploited more and more as people learn the mu. I think we ended up with this because originally, they tried to make a handful of moves so good by themselves that they would elevate a bad character. Let me make a metaphor: Zelda's overall capability is a blanket, and her moves are individual strings attached to it. The pmbr tried to lift the blanket with a few strings, which does elevate it, but also creates wide troughs of mediocre ability and a few narrow peaks of super ability. When the pmbr understandably tried to bring the individual power of some of her moves back down to normal levels, it was like giving her opponents scissors to cut them down.

Look at naryu's love, for example. It has good capabilities when successful, but a very simplistic (actually a few) means of punishing it directly. The arial version trades so poorly that an opponent can throw out a lingering hitbox before the attack frames and punish it without even having to time it very much. Mango even falcon up b'd zhime's love jump. And this weakness is on top of being shield grab-able and not even guaranteed a followup on a successful land-cancel. I'm expecting a response to this being "yes, but how often do you see people exploiting this weakness?" and "why shouldn't it have a way to counteract it; it'd be broken otherwise." My response to this is that the metagame hasn't developed enough to see people spamming this strategy. Also, if fox's shine had such a simple way of getting around it, such as being sheild grab-able, then people would be exploiting that weakness all over the place. My point is that Moves That Have Simple Exploitable Weaknesses Are Inferior to Those That Do Not, and since pretty much all of Zelda's moves have multiple simple strategy weaknesses to counterbalance them, I feel we can objectively say that in a set where both players have even mu knowledge, she will be at a distinct disadvantage.

I feel this is all true.
Maybe they should just change her less useful moves.
Dair, dtilt, jab(make it a 3 hit combo), and buff other moves kill power like utilt.
+speed increase (dash, walk)
That would make her perfect.

 

[Zerudahime]

dair is decent, dtilt is incredible it ALWAYS gives you frame advantage when using another move after it, and jab is a link.
amazing movepool.

 

[WhiteLightnin]

dair is decent, dtilt is incredible it ALWAYS gives you frame advantage when using another move after it, and jab is a link.
amazing movepool.

Guess I should probably update the thread again, huh?

 

[TimeSmash]

Include Teleburn so I can become famous thanks.

 

[Pika_thunder]

dair is decent, dtilt is incredible it ALWAYS gives you frame advantage when using another move after it, and jab is a link.
amazing movepool.

Never knew that, these moves seem much better now.
Thanks for telling me.

 

[otheusrex]

I feel this is all true.
Maybe they should just change her less useful moves.
Dair, dtilt, jab(make it a 3 hit combo), and buff other moves kill power like utilt.
+speed increase (dash, walk)
That would make her perfect.

Actually, on a small scale, all zelda's moves are very useful in some way or another. But I agree that they could change them slightly in ways to fulfill some different functions for her. She has more than enough gtfo moves, for example. If you ask me, she could use at least one move that's good for just throwing out a hitbox non-commitaly. I'm imagining this could help her force an opening sometrimes. I see her biggest weakness as having to rely on the opponent making a mistake to gain any momentum.

 

[TimeSmash]

I am thinking of opening up a mindgames/applied AT usage thread for Zelda. Would this be a flop, or not? I feel like there's so much to do with teledashing, and little things like releasing from the ledge and double jumping back on to snap someone with a lightning kick

 

[otheusrex]

I'd say if you want it to be purely about what she can do now, then open up a new thread. But if you want it to have to do with her potential changes in the future than probably post it here.

 

[ELI-mination]

People really give up too early on things...

When I first fought against a Zelda, it was like an obstacle course and I was tearing my hair out
But it was really satisfying being challenged in that way to learn the matchup

Having gotten much better at the matchup was a result of my persistence and not being a little whiny quitter that cries at the first sight of something they're not used to.

This game is bound to become a lot more bland imo if everything gets "normalized" to fit the standards of people who pretty much don't know how to deal with anything new. So there, that's my response to "fighting zelda is boring"

 

[TimeSmash]

I agree, and it's not like ALL Zeldas camp. you can play her very aggressively as well, obviously while being careful haha

 

[BJN39]

People really give up too early on things...

When I first fought against a Zelda, it was like an obstacle course and I was tearing my hair out
But it was really satisfying being challenged in that way to learn the matchup

Having gotten much better at the matchup was a result of my persistence and not being a little whiny quitter that cries at the first sight of something they're not used to.

This game is bound to become a lot more bland imo if everything gets "normalized" to fit the standards of people who pretty much don't know how to deal with anything new. So there, that's my response to "fighting zelda is boring"

This is SO right. Can I like, double like this?

 

[TimeSmash]

I think your sentence just did that for you.

 

[Blondie.]

I haven't been here for a while, but I'll throw in my 2 cents about Zelda real quick.

I've been playing Zelda competitively for 11 months now. I came from Brawl and enjoyed having a slow, defensive character that could punish really hard.

After maining her for a long time and trying hard to improve with her, I ultimately dropped her as my main. The reason is because I really feel like she has no where to grow as a character at this point. I was constantly trying new things, trying desperately to find a way to scare people and put them in their shield. I wanted to be able to control the stage well and force people to make mistakes, rather than relying on them to mess up.

Unfortunately I came to the realization that Zelda is just a bad character that may have relative success early on in the meta, but will slowly and continually become worse over time. I know how to play the Zelda match up very well and can absolutely body and Zelda players I come across with a relatively mobile or ranged character such as Fox or Marth.

I still play her as one of my now 5 mains (seriously guys, counter picking characters is gonna be the future meta for this game!), but I really only pull her out when I'm playing either someone predictable, so that I can read and punish them hard, or playing someone with a really bad mu vs Zelda (which is like no one really).

I would be in full support of a Zelda redesign, just because I feel like Zelda is a dead end character. People who claim Zelda is OP have absolutely no clue what they are talking about. I have NEVER lost a game to a Zelda player (not including Wi-Fi) because I've taken the time to learn the match up. My practice partner, Abstract Logic, bodies any Zeldas he comes across as well.

I quite enjoy watching Zhime play and think he is a great Zelda, but I always feel like it's just not gonna last. I may be wrong. I don't claim to know everything, but just throwing my opinion out there. Take it or leave it.

TL;DR
I think Zelda does need a redesign. You don't have to change EVERYTHING about her, but I would love to see some serious overhauls to her play style. Mobility is just too important in this game. People need to realize that this is still a DEMO game and not be so opposed to characters having changes. If the changes don't work, they can always go back to where they started.

 

[Blondie.]

After 5 pages of replies, I have yet to hear a top level player argue that Zelda should be changed. It just seems like most people are not fine with the current Zelda because she's "not fun to fight" Boo Hoo. The PMBR simply fails at playtesting if it took Zhime using Zelda at a high level to show what she could do. If they're indeed gonna redesign a character thats been around since Demo 1, I can only imagine who will be redesigned next.

I'm not the best Zelda player ever, but I'm a relatively good one who's placed pretty well at every tournament I've gone to, including 5/30 at WHOBO 5 and 17/64 at Low Tier City 1.

I do think Zelda needs to be changed. I'm not a play tester, so I'm completely unaware of what is going on right now, but it seems like it is probably going in the right direction. Zelda is absolutely no fun to fight against for pretty much anyone, and is really not even that fun to play as in tournament imo. I've heard lots and lots of negative feedback about Zelda from all sorts of players, and very rarely positive feedback.

If so many players have a problem with the design of a character, it should be addressed. Just look at 2.1 Ike, 2.5 Sonic, and 2.6 Ivy as examples. It really sucks for people like Zhime who have put so much time and effort into this version of the character, but we should be looking to create the best overall game for everyone. Not catering to certain people because they don't want change.

And in case no one remembers, Zelda has already been redesigned once from v1.0 to v2.1.

Edit: Sorry for the double post, but I've just got a lot to say

 

[jtm94]

I agree with many of Blondie's points. I faced quite a few people at Y-Town Throwdown who were really experienced in the Zelda MU and bodied me entirely. I tried switching up my playstyle from aggro to defensive to straight runaway, and had success with neither. My badness can also be taken into account, but I know my fair share about Zelda, even if I'm not a tournament master. I feel if I want to keep using her I need to attain Zhime level prowess with the character to break top 16.

 

[flying_tortoise]

Well I guess we'll see what they come up with. It would be purely ridiculous if it was just nerfs and we got nothing in return. I just hope there mindset is to actually help out the character as opposed to satisfying a group of people who are complaining about her.

 

[Paradoxium]

I love facing Zelda, Pikachu can just run circles around her all day

 

[TimeSmash]

Well I guess we'll see what they come up with. It would be purely ridiculous if it was just nerfs and we got nothing in return. I just hope there mindset is to actually help out the character as opposed to satisfying a group of people who are complaining about her.

Definitely. I don't see them nerfing Din's but Zelda is hard to approach with unless you really know what you're doing. If they mess with Nayru's so be it, even though it was multiple ways to be exploited, but I still want a character that is fun to play but maybe a little more aggressive than passive aggressive. After talking with JTM, we both agreed she shouldn't get nerfed, but that change is inevitable in this character. I'm jusy hoping they won't COMPLETELY change her play style

 

[Mr.Pickle]

Blondie is pretty legit, both in terms of player ability and his opinion on this matter. I like how most of the zelda players here are willing to listen to a healthy debate considering possible changes to zelda, keeping an open mind is good. Unfortunately I can't give too much input on this matter, I used to find the character pretty annoying back in the 2.1/2.5 demo days, but I've grown quite a bit as a player since then so I don't know how I'd feel about the character now, through when I played blondie at low tier city I enjoyed it.

 

[drsusredfish]

"Mobility is a key part of this game" takes away teleport cancel.......

 

[TimeSmash]

And it's not as if Teledashing is easy to approach with either

 

[Pika_thunder]

And it's not as if Teledashing is easy to approach with either

Lol. How true.

 

[Pika_thunder]

All discussion to the Zelda changes moved to the "Zelda changes discussion" thread.
Thus thread is about learning the current MU.

 

[WhiteLightnin]

All discussion to the Zelda changes moved to the "Zelda changes discussion" thread.
Thus thread is about learning the current MU.

Lol Pika I like your enthusiasm but that's already exactly what this thread is about, her balance in the game and stressing learning the MU. I don't think it makes sense to have the same thing in two different areas where it gives more of a chance for people to miss information. Any idea of changes or information regarding as such is directly related to her balance in the game. No worries. lol

 

[otheusrex]

I'd be really sad if they removed teledash simply because it's the coolest thing she can do, but it by itself doesn't do that much to lessen her movement problems. But if they take it away and give her a couple different approach options that'd be ok with me, as long as whatever improvements they gave her would be big enough to make a significant difference and not just "we took away X so we'll improve her dash and run by .5 [which, if you don't know would harldy be noticeable], that way she'll be improved [in theory!!] but not seem overpowered." I bring this up because I heard of a build where zelda's sdi modifyers were all normalized on her multihit moves and to compensate they increased her starting dash from 1.275 to 1.3, which is PIDDLY! I had experimented by increasing it to 1.7 cause I thought, "this will be way over the top but will help me get an idea of what a faster dash would do for her" and it wasn't even noticeable by itself. What it did do was effectively increase the horizontal distance around her that she threatens to punish by about half the length of her skirt, which, if you think about it, wouldn't help her approach directly so much as it would help her conversion in closer quarters. It made her grab game quite a bit more reliable, particularly her pivot grab, which made it a great counterattack, which fits with her character.

In general, if they made her grab game a little better I think this would do a lot to allow her to be offensive when she wants to be. Her grabs and throws are not about getting chain grabs (except on spacies on certain stages) and 0 to death combos, but are about gaining positional advantage and time to safely put out dins.

 

[BJN39]

I bring this up because I heard of a build where zelda's sdi modifiers were all normalized on her multihit moves and to compensate they increased her starting dash from 1.275 to 1.3, which is PIDDLY!

Please tell me where you heard this, this would be the most insulting (To me) change Zelda could get.

Unless they're thinking of changing the ENTIRE game's SDI dynamic and making ALL multihit moves crap, they better not do that.

 

[TimeSmash]

I think to say it best if that idea is executed it is ****ing stupid

 

[DarkStarStorm]

I agree, and it's not like ALL Zeldas camp. you can play her very aggressively as well, obviously while being careful haha

I love Zelda in that fact, for example Zhime plays a very trap based Zelda, I play a Telebased Zelda. I am trying to mix the two into my gameplay. I'll be on pretty soon, anyone want to play with me?

 

[PhantasyStar]

I love to play Zelda as a in your face type of character with spaced attacks. I really use dins fire mainly if i send someone off stage or if I can predict a movement.

 

[Kerenthar]

Two things about Zelda:

1. Her attacks links very well one into another (in comparison to Melee or Brawl). That is really good because makes her game more fluid (she can act immediatly out of her transformation, can change from ftilt to utilt faster, etc). The problem is when this works with this second point (and what I suppose some people feel her 'overpowered').
2. All her hitboxes feels too large, more than her movements animations. That feels more clearly against her neutralB and her Upsmash. Both movements hits from angles that visually don't match: Nayrus hits just a bit out of the blue barrier and Up smash hits even crawling characters with full power.

My suggestion is ask for a revision of her hitboxes sizes and, as people said before, to improve her less useful moves such dtilt, etc.

 

[Ali Baba 177]

Nearly 50 people have voted in the past two weeks and itd be awesome if 100 people could participate in this community involved 'tier list'. Just trying to gather the most recent opinions on character placement and then I'll make a tier list combining these results with tournament results. Im posting in a lot of threads so there can be more more opinions as that will reflect more accurately. If you havent voted yet please do! (just 3.0 opinions please)

The first one has you rank each character individually 1-41, I arranged it to what I think so it can be easier but itll still take a little time.
<a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GDPZ53B">Click here to take survey</a>

If you dont care as much and/or dont wanna spend as much time then this one is just rankings based on tier.
<a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GD3NDM9">Click here to take survey</a>

Thanks guys!

 

[WhiteLightnin]

Two things about Zelda:

1. Her attacks links very well one into another (in comparison to Melee or Brawl). That is really good because makes her game more fluid (she can act immediatly out of her transformation, can change from ftilt to utilt faster, etc). The problem is when this works with this second point (and what I suppose some people feel her 'overpowered').
2. All her hitboxes feels too large, more than her movements animations. That feels more clearly against her neutralB and her Upsmash. Both movements hits from angles that visually don't match: Nayrus hits just a bit out of the blue barrier and Up smash hits even crawling characters with full power.

My suggestion is ask for a revision of her hitboxes sizes and, as people said before, to improve her less useful moves such dtilt, etc.

With Nayru's you are right that the hits do occur just a bit outside of the blue barrier but there is actually a visual for it. It's hard to see as the hitboxes occur quickly but if you watch carefully you will notice that there are these small blue fragments/shards that are independent of the blue diamond and they do travel outside of it. If you go into training mode and slow it down you fill find it very easy to see them. As far as Up Smash, could you mention what part/area direction of it feels too big? (sides, above, etc.)

 

[Kerenthar]

I did actually saw the small blue shards and hits as hard as the big diamond. Her up-smash hits from below so hard that almost all lateral attacks fails, something that don't happen with Mewtwo's up-smash, that is pretty similar. You can feel this clearly as well with both side aerials: fair and bair are both too easy to connect, because of this (I think).

If you play with any other character, you need absolutely good timing too connect any move. Things with Zelda are easier and playing with my friend, anyone who chose Zelda suddenly wins more than before.

Just personal appreciations, anyways.

 

[Deleted member]

Kerenthar, the only thing your post proves is that Zelda lives up to her title as a noobkiller. I'm not saying you're a noob at Smash in general, but you clearly don't know how to effectively deal with Zelda. The most likely scenario is that you recklessly try to rush her down and end up getting caught in one of her larger hitboxes. Zelda, as a defensive character, needs a some bigger hitboxes to protect her. It's not her fault that you run into them.

U-smash is fine as-is. It doesn't kill too well, it's unsafe against shields, quite a few characters can crouch under it contrary to what you said (I don't think MK even needs to crouch at all) and it is possible to escape from the beginning of the move in certain situations (I've even seen CPU's do it.) That move is really only a headache for the space animals since you can chain a bunch of them together, but they have ways to work around that weakness.

 

[Kerenthar]

Jeje... yes, that is exactly what she actually is, a noobkiller. I just think she could be something better than that. My suggestion is just make her hitboxes matchs her movements animations and focus her improvements in other "less useful" moves such as down smash, down tilt, etc.

Regards.

 

[BJN39]

I always thought it would've been nice if Dsmash and Dtilt could've been semi-hybrids of Melee/Brawl.

In this case, I mean very very slightly raising the BKB of Dsmash, and very slightly increasing the reach of Dtilt.

For Dtilt, I'd like to make the reasoning that while hit-boxes should exactly follow the chars visual reach, which is logical, (Like her Dtilt does now) it simply doesn't apply to just about every other hand/foot move in the game. I mean, it wouldn't make it any easier to follow up with a move, which following up with anything other than Dsmash, Dtilt or maybe Utilt is a risky option. Even then, heavy characters can tech the Dtilt at lower pop-up percents anyways further shortening the list of viable followups to it.


But honestly, her melee moves aren't the main bulk of the problem, I liked the idea otheusrex posted a while back about boosting her initial dash to a bit farther/faster.

Right now, it seems like Zelda's mobility is just about as un-touchable as Melee top tiers. When that's where Zelda could use some help. I hope that the PMBR doesn't think making her mobility a little better (with the 3.02 design) will make her OP in some way. > _ >


Also, on another, different note, I think we should call the FW ledge-grab trick the "No-poof Farore's Ledge-Grab" or the "No-poof Ledge Grab". ["FWLG"] What do you Zeldas think of that name?

 

[otheusrex]

Since we have teledash and teleburn, how about we keep it in the same vein and go with"Teledge-grab"

Also, regarding upsmash, @ Kerenthar , we already know that the pmbr is strongly considering changing her multi-hit attacks to make them more able to be smash DI-ed, so that will be added to the other weaknesses upsmash already has. I agree that her magical attacks seem to have large hitboxes, but on the whole, I'd say her attack hitboxes are better delineated than those of most other characters; she has magical sparkles showing you the area of effect.

It's also misleading to look only at the size of her hitboxes to judge how much space is being threatened. A hitbox on a sword or limb might be small itself but cover a very large area when it's respective bone swings through the air. Likewise, a small hitbox over a few frames threatens a large area if the character is sailing through the air like captain falcon. Zelda's immobility greatly reduces the area her attacks threaten; so, if the hitboxes were any smaller, they could become pretty unsafe, unless they:

Increased the dash start-up speed. This would improve her close quarters fighting by essentially widening the area she can dash attack/grab and pivot slightly, which would make up for a slight loss in size of hitboxes (as well as quickening her ability to get out of the way). Regardless, even if they don't do anything to her hitboxes, I think a dash increase is almost warranted if they want to make zelda more 'engaging.'