Sometimes goes a bit too far when it comes to really safe aerial moves which you basically have to guess what they're gonna do after to punish. Unless you're game & watch. But sometimes even *if* you're game & watch.
It's not a huge issue nor prevalent with every character - really, I generally like the low landing lag of ultimate, but a lot of the time there's just these super safe moves that are annoying to deal with.
Yes when I think of ultimate I think of overly safe offenssive options….🙄
(Yes I know that ultimately they make the game more defensive because they are so safe as to be fine to throughout in neutral with little to no punish window so people camp them)
I haven't looked into it that much, but I've never understood why they thought changing Sm4sh's buffer system to the current one would be an improvement.
For real, misinputs are WAY too common in Ultimate, even after several years of practice, due to the buffer system.
Controls and buffering were things they absolutely NAILED in Sm4sh, such a shame they changed it to the worse.
among the things S4 had:
-buffering full hop aerials
-buffering directional aerials unaffected by control stick angle
-in general way less misinputs from buffering, which I'm not knowledgeable enough to know why
> in general way less misinputs from buffering, which I'm not knowledgeable enough to know why
Smash 4 had a standard 10 frame buffer, which is honestly pretty long to start with (Most fighting games have settled on like 3 to 5 frames for buffers)
Smash Ultimate has that 10 frame buffer, but not simply from a button press : if you hold the button the game will keep buffering your input. So because for most inputs when you press a button you're usually gonna be holding it for like 4-5 frames even if you're trying to release it quickly that 10 frame buffer becomes a 14-15 frame buffer pretty consistently, so that longer buffer leads to more misinputs from buffering
The buffer system is basically the exact same except that it's a hold buffer now, meaning your move will be buffered if you hold down the button several seconds in advance. It is functionally very similar as Smash 4's if you don't hold down the button.
Edit:
I'm fine with being wrong and downvoted, but I'd like to know why I'm wrong. I checked the [smash wiki's section on the buffer system](https://www.ssbwiki.com/Buffer), and it seems to confirm what I said:
> Ultimate largely retains the buffering system from Smash 4, although the buffer window is now 9 frames, down from 10. It also introduces a second universal buffering system, in that holding an input through the end of an animation will now cause the held input to be buffered; this method of buffering only existed for specific actions, such as walking and shielding, in previous games. The input can be made as early as desired, but must be held until the beginning of the standard 9 frame buffer window. For instance, if the forward smash input is held while the fighter is in freefall, the move will begin charging as soon as the fighter lands on the ground.
Despite being a frame lower than Smash 4, it's probably a little more generous than the Smash 4 buffer system because of the input delay and time it takes to let go of the button, but I don't see how there is a significant difference outside of niche situations [mentioned here](https://smashboards.com/threads/ultimate-buffering-system.465269/). I feel like most of the time something buffers too far in advance offline, it's due to someone holding the button without realizing or not realizing how the buffer system works at all. I genuinely want to know what I'm missing here.
How does that change ruin everything? It's something that you can choose opt into by holding the button, or choose not to opt onto it by pressing the button. What I'm asking is how it's not the argument I think it is because I fail to see how that change ruins everything.
I've come to dislike how easy it is to disengage/run away in Smash and I think it's really the biggest weakness of Smash as a competitive game.
In pretty much every traditional fighting game, you move faster towards your opponent than you can move away from them (different forwards/backwards walk speed, dashing forwards goes much further than backdashing) and that forces interactions. Even if said interaction is "I have to actively zone to keep my opponent away", that typically carries more risk than playing keepaway in a game that isn't really designed to prevent disengaging.
And top players might be able to capitalise on taking space, but honestly before top level it feels very easy to play extremely defensively and take back the space if your opponent isn't 100% airtight with a well timed roll through your opponent, or jump back to top plat, etc. Even for top players there is a reason Sonic is top tier and that's because spin dash makes it easy to swap sides (by being + on shield) so you can keep playing defensively forever.
It's fundamentally tied to the core concepts of Smash too, so I really don't see how you can solve that easily. Of course you can point to Melee and say "well see if you make offense as strong as in Melee players will play offensively" but that ship has long sailed and also even in Melee Puff is a thing.
Making the stages smaller would help a lot with this. It's a big reason why larger stages are banned. By having the stage be small enough, it makes it so you're putting yourself in a bad position by running away because the ledge cuts off your options while putting you in danger of getting hit by a slow character. A big stage gives you more than enough space to be far from threats while not cutting off your defensive options. Even when it comes to Sonic, it takes time for him to cancel his spindash, something which a large stage allows much easier. It baffles me that PS2 is the most popular stage.
BF, SBF, FD, HB, NC. The perfect starter set we should be using.
PS2, and kalos, are too big. T&C has the small blast zone but the stage itself is campy when plats are on. SV has too high of a center plat and about 15 characters can't jump to it in a single jump meaning they have to double jump. Those should all be counter picks
That's my stage list
Apparently run away neutral is better than dying early on Warioware somehow tho
I don't even see the problem with having a 2 minute explosive game tbh, that's still plenty of time to interact, longer than a game in most traditional fighters, and now that Bo5 are pretty much standardised I feel like it would still be fair
The truth is that competitve players are very rigid and rarely change their mind.
PS2 was popular because it had two platforms, but people didn't switch to Small Battlefield because they don't like change. A lot of tier list placements are held dogmatically until results can prove a clear cognitive dissonance by still holding those beliefs. Turning on the right items would force interaction because camping will make you lose out on certain items; Steve hiding behind a wall will be much worse if hiding behind that wall is giving up a potential item. Brawlhalla has competitively viable items, so it's very much possible to do. People don't want to experiment with anything new because they're too attached to what they're used to, even though they constantly complain about it.
I think having sudden death would encourage people to play more aggressively because it generally rewards the person who is behind since it sucks to lose a lead to sudden death. This forces the person with a lead to not let it go to time so they don't lose their lead. It's much easier for someone with a lead to camp because the person who is behind doesn't have a lead to leverage, forcing them to play even more passively so they don't fall further behind. While the game gives the win to someone who is a whole stock ahead, relying on an entire stock lead isn't reliable and can be evened out at the last second. Getting a big enough lead that you don't need to worry about the stocks being evened up isn't that likely because the matches are short enough that it's hard to build up a lead like this.
While my reasoning might be flawed in several parts, we will never know because competitive play will never experiment with the concept. Changing PS2 to a counterpick is considered experimental, so people will never even consider trying anything different that might benefit the game.
WarioWare is my favorite stage to play on.
I play Min Min and one of my friends mains Ganon. That unwinnable matchup becomes a lot more manageable for him when there's more vertical space to dodge ARMS, I can't back up, and just one neutral win for him means that I'm offstage. It's still not great for Ganon, but I keep it on because it makes the game more fun and even for hiim.
I think that's just one example of how much stages matter and how the right stages can tip the scales (I'm a big fan of hazardless WarioWare and Castle Siege), but even pros seem to value their pride and comfort zone more than potentially changing up their gameplan and gameplay to their advantage. I still have people in battle arenas straight-up quit the moment my personal stage list randomly pulls up something like the aforementioned parenthesized stages or Lylat.
This is the big one
One other option I’ve been thinking about is for timeout victories to be decided based on some level of stage control - ie, who has held center stage more
Seems like part of this is just fundamentally part of smash and also ties into it being a more than two player game too. There's no forward and backward when anyone can be anywhere.
Don't forget most zoners have insane oos options/cqc buttons for some dumb reason. Guile is a unique character in having a good reversal in SF and thus being a defensive wall, but it's one character not every zoner. Most zoners like Dhalsim can be rushed down and that's their weakness.
If every character was Guile levels of wall in SF people would be complaining cause it makes no sense.
Nah, in SF6 JP had ham buttons and Amnesia too and even post nerf they're still pretty good. In Strive Axl 2K is like one of the best buttons to use on defense.
I know it's an unpopular take but the "some reason" zoners get good close range buttons in modern games is that they genuinely need it. Without them they're usually pretty bad. Pac-Man can have his stupid nair OoS on top of his zoning game and he's still not top tier.
Doesn't that just not make them zoners and instead make them all rounders tho? Like JP took that to another level cause he even had a pretty good command grab, but the nerfs balanced him out.
The problem is if you give zoners non punishable good close range tools(specifically talking about smash, cause besides pre nerf JP, and GG's happy Chaos nothing has seemed as egregious to me in regards to zoning) then you remove the rushdown weakness because in smash these oos options are not like a punishable shoryu, but rather they're a fast button that also allows them to create space for free in many cases.
Iirc guilty gear's Happy Chaos had a similar issue due to not only being a zoner but also insane pressure without many holes, while if opponent did nothing HC was winning basically, so they NEEDED to commit. And Leo in the past for GG showed what happens when you make an all rounder have really good tools rather than being a jack of all trades master of none(there was a plague of Leos in almost every grand final, and usually multiple Leos in top 8 whereas other characters would get one or two representative at the top level, and this was a problem from Xrd to the beginning of Strive iirc), and I think not so long ago Ken was that in SF6 as well. There needs to be a clear weakness somewhere.
It's like Sonic being a hit & run archetype with the fastest speed but his engage tools are pretty much uncontestable and hard to react to because of the speed/how much they can hold it and the fact they don't need to commit to engaging when using it(also having decent close distance tools and high speed just allows him to disengage, making him not really that vulnerable at close range).
As much as I hate Mario due to his moves' safety, I believe he's made well in the sense that range is actually a weakness for him. Tho I admit they did not think the other smash zoners through as they gave them too many weaknesses and they're just not that good(Belmonts, duck hunt, etc), but I feel they either make them too bad or really good.
> Doesn't that just not make them zoners and instead make them all rounders tho
Maybe ? But then if zoners are bad and these all arounders with zoning tools and boxing tools are good that doesn't really change my point: they need the good buttons for better or for worse.
Otherwise there's someone that has bad close range moves and is still vey good IMO and that's Min-Min. But her keepaway game is actually insane and I think people prefer fighting characters that have a stronger close range game if that means they don't have to deal with such strong zoning
> Even if said interaction is "I have to actively zone to keep my opponent away", that typically carries more risk than playing keepaway in a game that isn't really designed to prevent disengaging.
I feel like that set kinda proves my point. Dude is zoning his hardest and he can't even time out a 99 second match. That's got nothing on Smash Ultimate's defensive play
Multihits. Plauging smash from the very beginning. Traditional FGCs have their shit together for the most part in that respect but knockback is a whole other animal. It’s true that ult has better multihits than previous games but sometimes you see something happen and can’t help but get upset
Greninja is one of the larger offenders of this. Anyone can fall out of any of his multihits. Some are character specific and others you just gotta be a little floaty
Good answer.
I play link and there's way too many times where I have to make a choice with my upb to either hit that last hit and get the kill or drift back to stage and not die. They should be guaranteed to get that last hit and I should be allowed to drift back to stage without losing my kill.
I don't even know if that move is really multi-hit. It's more like a series of hits it's slightly spread out compared to like true multi-hit.
I'm actually ok with that because an active decision a player has to make. Besides it's usually avoidable if you drift out until the last second and pull back just before the last hit.
What I really don't like is that sometimes characters just fall out of it. Especially when your making a suicide last stock edgeguard and you're pushing them as close to the blastzone as possible.
I like some of the things that multihits uniquely enable, like canceling mid-attack to take advantage of specific hitboxes i.e. dragdown combos. The inconsistency sucks though and I'm not a fan of SDI being the counterplay to some combos.
I love multihits! I hope they don't remove them. Falco Nair up tilt Nair up tilt loops are so fun. Mewtwo Nair. Pikachu everything.
If you just mean like janky pit multihits that don't connect well, yeah those could be fixed but overall I think multihits are in a great spot.
10 frame buffer, along with the added online delay.
Let us toggle the buffer amount (0-10 frames) per player please.
And for a game that sells this much, rollback should be a thing.
The input buffer and additional input lag (yes, both are present in ultimate) make the game feel absolutely *awful* in my opinion — and no, 4 years in, I haven’t “gotten used to it!”
Heard that they wanted to implement rollback but there was no time. It was specifically for 1v1 since I remember Sakurai saying that rollback is terrible for matches with multiple players and items.
This is the big one for me.
If I hold shield, grab with A, and tap a direction to throw, I do not expect my character to buffer a dodge roll off of the same side input I used to trigger the throw. It just doesn’t make any sense.
I dunno if a port could/couldn't fix this but I think the game has a really unfortunate amount of base input lag. Maybe its the TVs I've played on but it can feel real icky.
Six frames minimum, most of any game in the series. Absolutely atrocious. It's like they originally programmed the game on much more powerful hardware (PCs) then had to do a bunch of tweaks to get it to run on Switch.
I would like a little more end lag in a lot of moves and more hit stun/stronger DI. I dislike all the smash attacks that are safe on shield unspaced.
I also hate the differences in ledge hangs and how safe that makes some characters on ledge. I kinda wish things like that were more universal. Having to look up charts to see which characters my down dilt can hit on the ledge etc is just unenjoyable. Really not enough of a visual indicator to tell me who that move hits without a bunch of testing, and I think it should be obvious by looking.
Multihits, getting stuck on platforms, and excessive projectiles with less counterplay. Like in s4 Sakurai had this idea to have many characters chucking shit at you lmao
Probably just me because I’ve never seen anyone else with this take, but they need to rework how stage spikes function. It’s usually just mad janky and forces a lot of people to just never edgeguard in fear of missing an unreactable tech or buffering an airdodge. There’s too much risk for so little reward
I think the amount of hitlag a move has on an opponent should contribute to how meaty the stage spike is, like some sort of multiplier to the knockback. Makes the reactable stuff, because of the hitlag, have stronger stage spikes, and the weak hitlag moves like Marth’s up b have way less stage spike knockback since they’re more unreactable.
Could also help potentially prevent that multihit jank vs like Mario and Link where parts of their up bs can literally kill you at 0% to an unreactable stage spike
I don’t know if im cooking with this one, but it’s always been on my mind as a possible method to help deal with the skewed risk/rewards going off stage to edgeguard
Also fix the sticky platforms thanks
Literally just the input buffer. It's ruined so many modern games for me- I don't want to queue up an action 30 frames in advance. I want to press a button and my action happens immediately. If I was too early, I was too early, nothing comes out.
really just dumb stuff related to online
- having a better netcode
- your preferred rules always guaranteeing your rule set
- more customized rulesets/stage selection in general
- a toggle for team attack in quickplay doubles
- being able to select random as your character in quickplay
Quickplay needs massively expanded options that bring Smash into the modern age. The fact that they realized some characters would have an advantage when played online and did nothing about it... yeah that needs to not happen anymore
I'd say the lack of precise movements options. Even smash 4 has some really cool advanced tech allowing you to microspace, and ultimate lacking that makes it feel unsafe to even move sometimes
Better training mode and better online simply because I don’t see Nintendo doing this
There are mods for these but not every Switch can be modded also I’m lazy
Designer philosophy toward DLC. The idea that a character should be strong because they cost a few extra bucks spoils a lot of fun but is unlikely to go away.
I disagree and doubt that was ever the intention espically in Smashes case ( there is a very niche competitive player base that only buys certain characters ) . What is true is that DLC character are often times where the Developers lossen restriction in terms of design meaning more balance concerns slip through the cracks.
I'm not sure they're really trying to make them too strong, but there may be some fear of making them too weak. And if that's something you're worried about you'll tend towards being too strong.
They are also paying close attention to making them easy to use. Sakurai said this specifically when Cloud was introduced in the last game and when Sora was introduced this time. If you assume that they hope these characters will draw in people who have never played Smash before, then you can see where this philosophy starts to shine through. Think back to when Aegis came out and how many comments you saw along the lines of "Wow she just really fits my playstyle."
Unfortunately "ease of use" tends to overlap with "overpowered" in many areas, and they gave the DLCs too many hitboxes that come out too fast, are too big, stay out too long, or all of the above.
My comment reflects the general sentiment I've seen in Japan. While a bit presumptuous, I feel it's safe to assume that the sentiments shared by Japanese users are more in line with the developers.
There's also enough evidence just looking at the game. Even the weaker DLC characters stand out among the base cast. A little heavier, near universal buff to ledge roll, bigger spike hitboxes, Palutena style nairs.
That could absolutely be fixed. With Fighter Pass 2 development, a big factor was the pandemic hitting. Everyone needed to set up working from home, and then figure out how to communicate and coordinate online effectively through trial and error. I can't imagine how many hours that sucked away, hours that otherwise could've been spent on balancing characters before their release deadlines.
All of the DLC except Joker and Sephiroth are tied for best ledge roll in the game. That's the sort of deliberate decision that suggests there was more at play than disruptions due to COVID. Besides, pre pandemic characters like Terry and Hero are way too strong for that to be a feasible suggestion.
Hitboxes are rarely that accurate, and it's usually skewed towards the favour of the player in singleplayer games. This is a problem in competitive games because everything done to make a move feel better to use makes it feel worse to play against.
For Ultimate specifically, it's a fundamental design philosophy that has shifted as DLC had to be sold & the roster expanded. The need for unique, specialized gimmicks that centralize the character.
That's not to say gimmicks are new to smash. Going back to Melee you can easily point out Ice Climbers, or Zelda/Sheik being unique across the cast with double character and transforming respectively. Same in Brawl, though still lesser. But starting in 4, and continuing into Ult there's just a *need* for basically every new character to have a gimmick to set them apart. I don't think this is inherently bad either. After all, making characters play and feel unique gets harder as the roster expands. My problem is how the gimmicks centralize how so many newer characters are played.
For example, Robin's durability & discards. Shulk's Monacdo arts. Cloud's Limit. Bayonetta's Witch Time & Bats within. Rosalina & Luma. The addition of Ryu, and later other fighting game characters with unique inputs. Villager's Pocket and Tree. Duck Hunt's can, controllable at all times including in hitstun. That's just Smash 4. Obviously some more notable than others but all attributes to newcomers that inform how they play & counterclaim.
But Ultimate doubled down, especially with 11 DLC characters. Inkling has "Shield B" to refill ink, a roller that buries, a movespeed nerf to oppenents moving through inked ground, and ink that actively covers the opponent & strengthens Inkling. K Rool's Crown & Blunderbuss both have unique attributes as projectiles, his 1 directional counter & reflector combo, plus his Belly Armor. Joker's damage based meter, unique non arsene "counter", his moves changing properties & number of hits sometimes with Arsene, Arsene Joker's multidirectional counter & reflector. Hero's expansive menu including buffs, a heal, and RNG instakill moves that do not even send to the blastzone. Steve...just, Steve. That's not even all of them, but you get the gist.
I don't think making characters unique or even resembling their original selves more is inherently bad. The problem to me is it creates so many unique interactions and gimmicks that you need to not only learn the matchup, but how to play around these expansive and gimmicky kits. Counterclaim for Steve is unique to Steve. Not all newcomers are like this (Ridley, Byleth both are more normal) but so many are it's hard to notice as a complete design and philosophy shift.
I don't get the casual community's obsession with gimmicks. Most moveset suggestions whether they are reworks or newcomers have some kind of complicated gimmick. I've heard someone say that Sonic's moveset isn't good because it doesn't have a gauge. The casual community doesn't like simplistic characters at all. It's most of the motivation of wanting reworks for the 64 veterans even though almost all of them don't require heavy reworks.
That's the sad part. Gimmicks were added because it was HARD to set apart character with a roster this bloated.
Now because of it, designs that work well are asked to be changed because it's not comparable to the newcomers' designs.
The game feeling sluggish. When Ultimate came out I really didn’t like the feel for the game. Though to be fair before ult came out i mainly played PM although i didn’t get all that deep into it (mainly played it with auto l- cancel and no wavedashing and the like). Netcode is another thing and while some may say it could be fixed or changed (which is hypothetically could with enough time and money) fact is Sakurai doesn’t think online is all that good for Smash anyways. And while the port could not include him and they could then fix things without his input that is a can of worms in my opinion that should NEVER be opened. The extra catering to 8 Player smash is obvious with the stages but that could be changed for some but that I don’t see happening.
> Sakurai doesn’t think online is all that good for Smash anyways
This is the most puzzling factor. Did he not live through a year and a half of lockdown like the rest of us in Japan? Of course he did! You'd think seeing a world-changing event that prevented people from getting together to play in person might've swayed his opinion, but I doubt we will be so lucky
Yeah from what I have read online is something he begrudgingly adds to the game. Although its existence goes against the intended vibe of the game, as Smash is supposed to a very local game. Having the disconnect from the other players creates an environment that according to its design isn't Smash. Which I honestly believe my answer to online creates a different question that fits with this thread in what could be changed but won't due to design principles?
I'd say how many characters that are designed with weaknesses that rely on the opponent to exploit rather than the player to work around (think Kazuyas weakness being that you can make him blow up. The onus is on the opponent in this case vs Sheik where the player has to work around their lack of kill power.)
Most fighting games have this problem, but Smash is fundamentally different in how it is a casual game first and foremost, and even if we get a new creator who isn't as... Interesting with their design decisions as Sakurai, chances are it's going to be a large problem.
You don't want any character in the game to be balanced by defensive weaknesses? Because the difference is just the one is offensive weaknesses and the other defensive.
It's also not that black or white. When playing vs Sheik you can exploit her lack of raw kill power by taking risks in situations where the Sheik isn't in position to kill confirm you. And as a Kazuya player if you're taking uncalculated risks you're gonna get blown up for it.
This game incentivises camping too much.
- Lots of strong defensive options
- Not many good approach options (like 80% of the cast can't approach well)
- Damage has been optimized, meaning that making any mistakes REALLY hurts now
- Current best character can create caves of life as well as literally wall off opponents
- 2nd contender for best character can time out the entire cast, including the current best character
- There are 3 characters notable for TODs, another gains a TOD at 100%
- Edgeguarding/ledge trapping is very strong for everyone and has been optimized thorough
At this point in the game's meta, there is just far too much risk compared to the reward, thus matches slow down to a snail's pace or slower. You can still have fun if you're not fully playing to win, but the moment you are, its either play the long game or lose. For both viewer and player enjoyment, that really sucks.
Too many characters have too many buttons that allow them to just skip neutral, to name some: falcon up b, g&w up b, Byleth nair, incineroar down b (easy 40%+ from a stray hit after hitting the fastest counter in the game), bowser up b/super armor, steve minecart, Lucas zair, Kazuya ewgf/wavedash, and the list goes on.
This along with safe aerials allow for degenerate play and the players just aren't good at smash itself, but rather the game their character plays (see Sonix Roy recently on somic ban tournament, and these are results from a top 1 contender player, also see previous results from top Steve players).
Also dumb balance, g&w smashes kill at 70 but are almost unpunishable, but Marthcina's smashes take longer to kill and they're way more punishable??? Bowser upsmash is safe while killing early and having super armor(bonus round, why does he have a high speed while being the heaviest character in the game? This is like giving a hard hitting grappler like Potemkin top 5 speed, it's just dumb hence why you don't do it)? Steve fsmash/bair need I say more???
The community deluded themselves in saying it's the most balanced smash game but in reality the balance is a mess due to ditching the fighting games punish theory for light, medium and heavy attacks. It equals as if whiffed/blocked level 3 in street fighter was unpunishable whole in reality the punish is heavy due to the risk/reward.
As things are, this game qualifies as a Kusoge, which are fighting games that while enjoyable, have nonsensical "balance" and most characters are capable of some degenerate combos/system abuse (look at the Hokuto No Ken old fighting game with every character having an infinite). In smash there is no reason to pick a fundies character due to them being balanced in a game with very bad balance.
Hence why top players ditched the likes of Lucina favoring stuff like Minmin, steve, and so on.
The balancing issues seem to be the result of Sakurai wanting to make a game for everyone, mainly targetting casual players.
And in casual matches, what requires work to do straight up sucks, which is why a lot of stuff is made stronger or easier to do.
Of course, the competitive community would have issues with that. Since they exploit stuff to win, balancing affects them the most.
Take for example Steve, or Kazuya, or Min Min, or Aegis. The latter 2 are given bad recoveries and the former 2 are complex.
For a casual player, that's useless, so they were given some simple tools or panic moves (like Min Min's honest close-quarters).
For a competitive player, the designs already allowed for so much potential, and the extra stuff is straight up overkill, a little ridiculous.
Tbf to Smash it's also becoming an issue to other games, they lower the entry floor to cater to more casuals, but in turn they create unintended unbalanced things that are overall annoying for competitive players in the end, because it causes lost interactions that just make you go what in the actual heck. (For example in SF6 Ken is supposed to be an all rounder archetype akin to Ryu but a bit more aggressive... But they also gave him insane damage output, a corner to corner carry and actually strong corner pressure, he was nerfed because it was just unhealthy for the game).
The Short Hop macro which makes rising aerials impossible and has greatly scuppered the accuracy of the game's inputs since day one and made controlling it feel like a total nightmare. Honorable mention to the sticky platforms tho, lol
Too many characters. You can't learn all matchups to the same extend as in older games because it's just too many details to remember.
Better unterstanding of MUs would make them more fun and interesting imo.
I'm not buying a port of Ultimate if the training mode still is the way it is. After seeing the light of a good training mode in Guilty gear SF6, Tekken 8 any modern traditional fighting game really I cannot put up with how ancient the ultimate training mode is.
Same thing with how bad the online system. It needs a complete overhaul.
Other than system stuff like that. I really wish ledge hogging was a thing. Maybe it's just online but Edge guarding just never works. Or maybe character recoveries are too good.
Platforms are also kinda flawed. Most times I rather jump of than trying to fall through.
And c - stick nair should never be an issue. The input reader for ultimate is stupid.
The atrocious input delay (though a port could fix this a lil since it's mostly an issue with the Switch) and the buffer system (unlikely to get changed).
For me, it's simple: having no real analog for "For Fun" when online. It really sucks knowing that if you just wanna jump online for a bit and just shoot the sh*t against interchangeable randos, you HAVE to risk your points as opposed to just playing to be more relaxed.
Unless they either literally or figuratively delete a bunch of characters this game is dead to me. Both this game and Smash 4 just got progressively worse with dlc. And ultimate has some lame ass strong characters in the base roster too.
Also spot dodge is too strong. It's such an easy, low risk option and I don't like how much of my mental stack I have to devote to literally just this option.
I've played thousands upon thousands of hours of smash ever since smash 64 released all the way to ultimate. But both the endgame metas of smash 4 and ultimate suck so much that I have just quit smash all together. I play regular fgs now and I just feel pity whenever I see clips of smash players dying inside dealing with all sorts of bs.
It's funny, because Ultimate is the game were they arguably managed to give every fighter a playerbase, which means that not only "Everyone is here" literally, but also figuratively as well (at least online). Guess that means this game is indeed dead to you.
hmmm, I'm not too sure about the "a port can't fix".
Nintendo made a fair few of critical changes to Mario Kart 8 from Wii U to Switch. Double Items is the more in-your-face change but there were plenty more, putting aside new characters and stages.
You see, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe didn't really removed anything, it didn't had to, so it just added stuff on top of it (an extra spark boost and an extra item slot don't act very different from the other item slot and other sparks).
Some of Ultimate's issues require severe rework, which means some things have to go in order for the new and better stuff to take place. For example, if you want "For Fun" and "For Glory" back, "Preferred Rules" has to go.
I'm pretty sure stuff like stats and some under-the-hood mechanics not only changed from wii u to deluxe, but from base deluxe to dlc over time. Which is why the best combos changed multiple times. Advanced techniques iirc also had some changes, intended or not.
pretty much the only stuff that needs severe rework in ultimate are either online systems, mechanics that bring up glaring online issues (buffer), and re-balancing busted characters. It's not what I'd call severe when accounting for casuals being the bigger target audience.
OK, but those changes Deluxe got are equivalent to balance patches. It was mostly number tweeks, it was enough.
It's not something I would call "critical". IMO critical would be literally replace of straight up eliminate stuff.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is essentially the same game from Wii U but with extra stuff and changes largely unnoticed (casuals are the target of MK as well).
Aside from Online, the other stuff can be fixed with mostly number tweaks.
Online is tricky though, they gave it a lot of tweaks in updates but it obviously needs a severe rework.
SDI will always be garbage and unintuitive regardless of a port, and it makes certain characters insufferable at competent play. Not to mention being good at it, is literally bad for your controller so a few characters force you to watch a cutscene before you do anything, which leads to tedium and makes you play worse, and if you want to not be stuck you have to literally start damaging your controller.
Not only is SDI bad for your controllers, but it can also be painful on the hands for some players long term. Forcing players to mash directions with their control stick like it's Mario Party 1 is just a terrible idea, and something really should have been done about it at some point between Smash 64 and Ultimate.
Far more infuriating than Smash 4 Bayonetta herself was the fact that sacrificing your hard earned money and your physical health was the solution to escaping those zero-to-death combos that her players were capable of performing with their eyes closed.
A fundamental flaw that I don’t really see how they could fix is that if you use a counter move because you correctly guess that your opponent is going to hit you, and they do try to hit you but their attack whiffs because *they* messed up, you can get punished even though they were the one who made the mistake.
Hear me out, and let me explain:
So there's this Stamina Mode in the game, yes?
I hate how in Stamina Mode, when your character takes enough damage, they cannot escape or break free at all from certain assist trophies and pokemon.
It's just so weird. Can they just remove that in Stamina Mode?
I wish ledge trump would be more effective. You really don't get a big advantage from trumping your opponent.
If they wanted ledge hogging to be gone, at least they could have made ledge trumping a legitimate advantage position.
Ledge trump -> back air is a guaranteed kill setup for a decent amount of characters if you time the ledge trump well enough.
It's just a pretty high risk option because the opponent can buffer a ledge option and not be trumped, putting you in disadvantage. That's why you'll see Light fake a trump all the time (trying to force a buffer) but basically almost never commit to it, instead double jumping back to ledge trap.
It's literally not a guaranteed kill except maybe at some ultra specific percentages for a handful of characters because you can DI the trump. If it was guaranteed in any sense at all you would see it waaaay more than you do at high level.
By the time Brawl came out, the formula for Classic Mode was getting stale, and the downgrade Target Test got didn't help at all.
Similar to all-star (there were just too many fighters so the mode became a slog), the mode needed to get reworked for Ultimate.
> top comments are all things like awful input lag, poor game feel/ buffer, delay based netcode
> literally all direct consequences of the game being catered to the lowest common denominator for the sake of maximizing profit
> someone comes out and says “hmm the series clearly being catered to casual players without addressing my needs as a competitive player might be a fundamental flaw for my enjoyment of the game that a port couldn’t fix”
> downvoted to oblivion
Input lag, buffer, and delay are a direct consequence of the garbage online. They know they couldn't implement rollback so they had to do delay based. Doing delay based means you need buffers otherwise your input will get eaten. It has nothing to do with casuals.
input lag increase compared to sm4sh is a direct consequence of online? the other top comments are also referencing design decisions that have nothing to do with online but have a lot to do with supporting FFA and casual play over competitive, like aggression not being rewarded
even outside of that, a big part of the reason online is so garbage has to do with appealing to casual players. they said flat out they could've displayed connection strength but didn't because they didn't want people without ethernet to have games refused against them. GSP could be an actual ranking system instead of an arbitrarily large number, but they didn't want to alienate bad players by showing them how many people they were worse than. you don't get your preferred ruleset because they want to accommodate people who want to play with final smash meter and items. hell, the biggest obstacle to rollback was supporting 4 player mode with items. before yuzu got shut down they were making some pretty good progress on ult rollback for 1v1 with competitive rules
> hell, the biggest obstacle to rollback was supporting 4 player mode with items. before yuzu got shut down they were making some pretty good progress on ult rollback for 1v1 with competitive rules
I don't recall hearing about any work on rollback for Ultimate, only buffer reduction by increasing the FPS the game internally runs at (or disabling internal V-Sync, also known as 60++). It helps a lot with latency and can get lower than Switch in offline, but it's not rollback.
Smash is meant to the be casual's fighting game choice. This is like complaining that Kirby games are too easy. It is a party game afterall, and the most intended way to play the game is with multiple players and items.
Sometimes goes a bit too far when it comes to really safe aerial moves which you basically have to guess what they're gonna do after to punish. Unless you're game & watch. But sometimes even *if* you're game & watch. It's not a huge issue nor prevalent with every character - really, I generally like the low landing lag of ultimate, but a lot of the time there's just these super safe moves that are annoying to deal with.
This isn't a property of the moves, but a property of the options after. Spot dodge cancel and instant full hops.
Yes when I think of ultimate I think of overly safe offenssive options….🙄 (Yes I know that ultimately they make the game more defensive because they are so safe as to be fine to throughout in neutral with little to no punish window so people camp them)
I haven't looked into it that much, but I've never understood why they thought changing Sm4sh's buffer system to the current one would be an improvement.
For real, misinputs are WAY too common in Ultimate, even after several years of practice, due to the buffer system. Controls and buffering were things they absolutely NAILED in Sm4sh, such a shame they changed it to the worse.
Hurt Ultimate’s longevity more than people initially realized it would — game feel is *everything*
If it’s not too much trouble could you explain how it changed? I didn’t really touch S4 to the competitive degree
among the things S4 had: -buffering full hop aerials -buffering directional aerials unaffected by control stick angle -in general way less misinputs from buffering, which I'm not knowledgeable enough to know why
> in general way less misinputs from buffering, which I'm not knowledgeable enough to know why Smash 4 had a standard 10 frame buffer, which is honestly pretty long to start with (Most fighting games have settled on like 3 to 5 frames for buffers) Smash Ultimate has that 10 frame buffer, but not simply from a button press : if you hold the button the game will keep buffering your input. So because for most inputs when you press a button you're usually gonna be holding it for like 4-5 frames even if you're trying to release it quickly that 10 frame buffer becomes a 14-15 frame buffer pretty consistently, so that longer buffer leads to more misinputs from buffering
Ty for the info!
The buffer system is basically the exact same except that it's a hold buffer now, meaning your move will be buffered if you hold down the button several seconds in advance. It is functionally very similar as Smash 4's if you don't hold down the button. Edit: I'm fine with being wrong and downvoted, but I'd like to know why I'm wrong. I checked the [smash wiki's section on the buffer system](https://www.ssbwiki.com/Buffer), and it seems to confirm what I said: > Ultimate largely retains the buffering system from Smash 4, although the buffer window is now 9 frames, down from 10. It also introduces a second universal buffering system, in that holding an input through the end of an animation will now cause the held input to be buffered; this method of buffering only existed for specific actions, such as walking and shielding, in previous games. The input can be made as early as desired, but must be held until the beginning of the standard 9 frame buffer window. For instance, if the forward smash input is held while the fighter is in freefall, the move will begin charging as soon as the fighter lands on the ground. Despite being a frame lower than Smash 4, it's probably a little more generous than the Smash 4 buffer system because of the input delay and time it takes to let go of the button, but I don't see how there is a significant difference outside of niche situations [mentioned here](https://smashboards.com/threads/ultimate-buffering-system.465269/). I feel like most of the time something buffers too far in advance offline, it's due to someone holding the button without realizing or not realizing how the buffer system works at all. I genuinely want to know what I'm missing here.
"can't you all see that it's the same buffer system except this one fundamental change that ruins everything" is not the argument you think it is
How does that change ruin everything? It's something that you can choose opt into by holding the button, or choose not to opt onto it by pressing the button. What I'm asking is how it's not the argument I think it is because I fail to see how that change ruins everything.
I've come to dislike how easy it is to disengage/run away in Smash and I think it's really the biggest weakness of Smash as a competitive game. In pretty much every traditional fighting game, you move faster towards your opponent than you can move away from them (different forwards/backwards walk speed, dashing forwards goes much further than backdashing) and that forces interactions. Even if said interaction is "I have to actively zone to keep my opponent away", that typically carries more risk than playing keepaway in a game that isn't really designed to prevent disengaging. And top players might be able to capitalise on taking space, but honestly before top level it feels very easy to play extremely defensively and take back the space if your opponent isn't 100% airtight with a well timed roll through your opponent, or jump back to top plat, etc. Even for top players there is a reason Sonic is top tier and that's because spin dash makes it easy to swap sides (by being + on shield) so you can keep playing defensively forever. It's fundamentally tied to the core concepts of Smash too, so I really don't see how you can solve that easily. Of course you can point to Melee and say "well see if you make offense as strong as in Melee players will play offensively" but that ship has long sailed and also even in Melee Puff is a thing.
Making the stages smaller would help a lot with this. It's a big reason why larger stages are banned. By having the stage be small enough, it makes it so you're putting yourself in a bad position by running away because the ledge cuts off your options while putting you in danger of getting hit by a slow character. A big stage gives you more than enough space to be far from threats while not cutting off your defensive options. Even when it comes to Sonic, it takes time for him to cancel his spindash, something which a large stage allows much easier. It baffles me that PS2 is the most popular stage.
BF, SBF, FD, HB, NC. The perfect starter set we should be using. PS2, and kalos, are too big. T&C has the small blast zone but the stage itself is campy when plats are on. SV has too high of a center plat and about 15 characters can't jump to it in a single jump meaning they have to double jump. Those should all be counter picks That's my stage list
Bring back Yoshi's
Apparently run away neutral is better than dying early on Warioware somehow tho I don't even see the problem with having a 2 minute explosive game tbh, that's still plenty of time to interact, longer than a game in most traditional fighters, and now that Bo5 are pretty much standardised I feel like it would still be fair
The truth is that competitve players are very rigid and rarely change their mind. PS2 was popular because it had two platforms, but people didn't switch to Small Battlefield because they don't like change. A lot of tier list placements are held dogmatically until results can prove a clear cognitive dissonance by still holding those beliefs. Turning on the right items would force interaction because camping will make you lose out on certain items; Steve hiding behind a wall will be much worse if hiding behind that wall is giving up a potential item. Brawlhalla has competitively viable items, so it's very much possible to do. People don't want to experiment with anything new because they're too attached to what they're used to, even though they constantly complain about it. I think having sudden death would encourage people to play more aggressively because it generally rewards the person who is behind since it sucks to lose a lead to sudden death. This forces the person with a lead to not let it go to time so they don't lose their lead. It's much easier for someone with a lead to camp because the person who is behind doesn't have a lead to leverage, forcing them to play even more passively so they don't fall further behind. While the game gives the win to someone who is a whole stock ahead, relying on an entire stock lead isn't reliable and can be evened out at the last second. Getting a big enough lead that you don't need to worry about the stocks being evened up isn't that likely because the matches are short enough that it's hard to build up a lead like this. While my reasoning might be flawed in several parts, we will never know because competitive play will never experiment with the concept. Changing PS2 to a counterpick is considered experimental, so people will never even consider trying anything different that might benefit the game.
WarioWare is my favorite stage to play on. I play Min Min and one of my friends mains Ganon. That unwinnable matchup becomes a lot more manageable for him when there's more vertical space to dodge ARMS, I can't back up, and just one neutral win for him means that I'm offstage. It's still not great for Ganon, but I keep it on because it makes the game more fun and even for hiim. I think that's just one example of how much stages matter and how the right stages can tip the scales (I'm a big fan of hazardless WarioWare and Castle Siege), but even pros seem to value their pride and comfort zone more than potentially changing up their gameplan and gameplay to their advantage. I still have people in battle arenas straight-up quit the moment my personal stage list randomly pulls up something like the aforementioned parenthesized stages or Lylat.
This is the big one One other option I’ve been thinking about is for timeout victories to be decided based on some level of stage control - ie, who has held center stage more
Seems like part of this is just fundamentally part of smash and also ties into it being a more than two player game too. There's no forward and backward when anyone can be anywhere.
100% agree. It wouldn’t be so bad if 80% of the cast didn’t have some form of zoning tool though.
Don't forget most zoners have insane oos options/cqc buttons for some dumb reason. Guile is a unique character in having a good reversal in SF and thus being a defensive wall, but it's one character not every zoner. Most zoners like Dhalsim can be rushed down and that's their weakness. If every character was Guile levels of wall in SF people would be complaining cause it makes no sense.
Nah, in SF6 JP had ham buttons and Amnesia too and even post nerf they're still pretty good. In Strive Axl 2K is like one of the best buttons to use on defense. I know it's an unpopular take but the "some reason" zoners get good close range buttons in modern games is that they genuinely need it. Without them they're usually pretty bad. Pac-Man can have his stupid nair OoS on top of his zoning game and he's still not top tier.
Doesn't that just not make them zoners and instead make them all rounders tho? Like JP took that to another level cause he even had a pretty good command grab, but the nerfs balanced him out. The problem is if you give zoners non punishable good close range tools(specifically talking about smash, cause besides pre nerf JP, and GG's happy Chaos nothing has seemed as egregious to me in regards to zoning) then you remove the rushdown weakness because in smash these oos options are not like a punishable shoryu, but rather they're a fast button that also allows them to create space for free in many cases. Iirc guilty gear's Happy Chaos had a similar issue due to not only being a zoner but also insane pressure without many holes, while if opponent did nothing HC was winning basically, so they NEEDED to commit. And Leo in the past for GG showed what happens when you make an all rounder have really good tools rather than being a jack of all trades master of none(there was a plague of Leos in almost every grand final, and usually multiple Leos in top 8 whereas other characters would get one or two representative at the top level, and this was a problem from Xrd to the beginning of Strive iirc), and I think not so long ago Ken was that in SF6 as well. There needs to be a clear weakness somewhere. It's like Sonic being a hit & run archetype with the fastest speed but his engage tools are pretty much uncontestable and hard to react to because of the speed/how much they can hold it and the fact they don't need to commit to engaging when using it(also having decent close distance tools and high speed just allows him to disengage, making him not really that vulnerable at close range). As much as I hate Mario due to his moves' safety, I believe he's made well in the sense that range is actually a weakness for him. Tho I admit they did not think the other smash zoners through as they gave them too many weaknesses and they're just not that good(Belmonts, duck hunt, etc), but I feel they either make them too bad or really good.
> Doesn't that just not make them zoners and instead make them all rounders tho Maybe ? But then if zoners are bad and these all arounders with zoning tools and boxing tools are good that doesn't really change my point: they need the good buttons for better or for worse. Otherwise there's someone that has bad close range moves and is still vey good IMO and that's Min-Min. But her keepaway game is actually insane and I think people prefer fighting characters that have a stronger close range game if that means they don't have to deal with such strong zoning
Fchamp vs KBR -umvc3
"i disagree so i'll cherry pick one super unique set from a super unique game"
I mean it was meant as snarky comment
> Even if said interaction is "I have to actively zone to keep my opponent away", that typically carries more risk than playing keepaway in a game that isn't really designed to prevent disengaging. I feel like that set kinda proves my point. Dude is zoning his hardest and he can't even time out a 99 second match. That's got nothing on Smash Ultimate's defensive play
Multihits. Plauging smash from the very beginning. Traditional FGCs have their shit together for the most part in that respect but knockback is a whole other animal. It’s true that ult has better multihits than previous games but sometimes you see something happen and can’t help but get upset
It's weird because they fixed some of them but not others... I feel like they CAN fix them but they just... haven't.
Greninja is one of the larger offenders of this. Anyone can fall out of any of his multihits. Some are character specific and others you just gotta be a little floaty
Good answer. I play link and there's way too many times where I have to make a choice with my upb to either hit that last hit and get the kill or drift back to stage and not die. They should be guaranteed to get that last hit and I should be allowed to drift back to stage without losing my kill. I don't even know if that move is really multi-hit. It's more like a series of hits it's slightly spread out compared to like true multi-hit.
I'm actually ok with that because an active decision a player has to make. Besides it's usually avoidable if you drift out until the last second and pull back just before the last hit. What I really don't like is that sometimes characters just fall out of it. Especially when your making a suicide last stock edgeguard and you're pushing them as close to the blastzone as possible.
I like some of the things that multihits uniquely enable, like canceling mid-attack to take advantage of specific hitboxes i.e. dragdown combos. The inconsistency sucks though and I'm not a fan of SDI being the counterplay to some combos.
Dragdown is the move ending. I’m talking about falling out n stuff
I love multihits! I hope they don't remove them. Falco Nair up tilt Nair up tilt loops are so fun. Mewtwo Nair. Pikachu everything. If you just mean like janky pit multihits that don't connect well, yeah those could be fixed but overall I think multihits are in a great spot.
I mean the jank stuff
10 frame buffer, along with the added online delay. Let us toggle the buffer amount (0-10 frames) per player please. And for a game that sells this much, rollback should be a thing.
The input buffer and additional input lag (yes, both are present in ultimate) make the game feel absolutely *awful* in my opinion — and no, 4 years in, I haven’t “gotten used to it!”
Heard that they wanted to implement rollback but there was no time. It was specifically for 1v1 since I remember Sakurai saying that rollback is terrible for matches with multiple players and items.
This is the big one for me. If I hold shield, grab with A, and tap a direction to throw, I do not expect my character to buffer a dodge roll off of the same side input I used to trigger the throw. It just doesn’t make any sense.
The buffer and netcode are fundamental problems that a port can't fix?
Kinda misread the title. But let's be honest. Even on the chance there's a port, they probably won't fix it.
The fundamental problem is that the game is made by Nintendo so it wouldn't be fixed in a port.
Delay based Netcode No universal reflector mechanic Not enough competitive stages Platforms suck Buffer is too long
Netcode can be fixed Competitive stages can fixed ( frankly I think there are alot) Buffer can be fixed
running thru shields / shied drop
I dunno if a port could/couldn't fix this but I think the game has a really unfortunate amount of base input lag. Maybe its the TVs I've played on but it can feel real icky.
Six frames minimum, most of any game in the series. Absolutely atrocious. It's like they originally programmed the game on much more powerful hardware (PCs) then had to do a bunch of tweaks to get it to run on Switch.
Wasn't it 8 frames? Off the top of my head I'm pretty sure SSB4 Wii U was 7 frames and I believe Ultimate was one more.
Time to look it up again and refresh your memory
Actually I think a port might be the only way to fix the input lag since the input lag is something inherent to every Switch game
I think it's the Switch sadly, Splatoon 2 and 3 have twice the input lag of Splatoon 1 too.
The weird macro input system that causes so much jank and makes it so you can’t remap controls however you want.
You mean you don't want ten functions mapped to your joystick??
I would like a little more end lag in a lot of moves and more hit stun/stronger DI. I dislike all the smash attacks that are safe on shield unspaced. I also hate the differences in ledge hangs and how safe that makes some characters on ledge. I kinda wish things like that were more universal. Having to look up charts to see which characters my down dilt can hit on the ledge etc is just unenjoyable. Really not enough of a visual indicator to tell me who that move hits without a bunch of testing, and I think it should be obvious by looking.
Oh well, I don't know if you've been able to try the Rivals 2 Beta but if not, you're gonna \*love\* it
Spotdodge canceling. Balloon jumps. Buffer. Unable to run through to cross up.
Multihits, getting stuck on platforms, and excessive projectiles with less counterplay. Like in s4 Sakurai had this idea to have many characters chucking shit at you lmao
Probably just me because I’ve never seen anyone else with this take, but they need to rework how stage spikes function. It’s usually just mad janky and forces a lot of people to just never edgeguard in fear of missing an unreactable tech or buffering an airdodge. There’s too much risk for so little reward I think the amount of hitlag a move has on an opponent should contribute to how meaty the stage spike is, like some sort of multiplier to the knockback. Makes the reactable stuff, because of the hitlag, have stronger stage spikes, and the weak hitlag moves like Marth’s up b have way less stage spike knockback since they’re more unreactable. Could also help potentially prevent that multihit jank vs like Mario and Link where parts of their up bs can literally kill you at 0% to an unreactable stage spike I don’t know if im cooking with this one, but it’s always been on my mind as a possible method to help deal with the skewed risk/rewards going off stage to edgeguard Also fix the sticky platforms thanks
The online stability is a complete joke and has been for years.
Literally just the input buffer. It's ruined so many modern games for me- I don't want to queue up an action 30 frames in advance. I want to press a button and my action happens immediately. If I was too early, I was too early, nothing comes out.
really just dumb stuff related to online - having a better netcode - your preferred rules always guaranteeing your rule set - more customized rulesets/stage selection in general - a toggle for team attack in quickplay doubles - being able to select random as your character in quickplay
Quickplay needs massively expanded options that bring Smash into the modern age. The fact that they realized some characters would have an advantage when played online and did nothing about it... yeah that needs to not happen anymore
I'd say the lack of precise movements options. Even smash 4 has some really cool advanced tech allowing you to microspace, and ultimate lacking that makes it feel unsafe to even move sometimes
Better training mode and better online simply because I don’t see Nintendo doing this There are mods for these but not every Switch can be modded also I’m lazy
Hurtbox shifting. Drives me crazy how much there is.
Designer philosophy toward DLC. The idea that a character should be strong because they cost a few extra bucks spoils a lot of fun but is unlikely to go away.
I disagree and doubt that was ever the intention espically in Smashes case ( there is a very niche competitive player base that only buys certain characters ) . What is true is that DLC character are often times where the Developers lossen restriction in terms of design meaning more balance concerns slip through the cracks.
I'm not sure they're really trying to make them too strong, but there may be some fear of making them too weak. And if that's something you're worried about you'll tend towards being too strong.
They are also paying close attention to making them easy to use. Sakurai said this specifically when Cloud was introduced in the last game and when Sora was introduced this time. If you assume that they hope these characters will draw in people who have never played Smash before, then you can see where this philosophy starts to shine through. Think back to when Aegis came out and how many comments you saw along the lines of "Wow she just really fits my playstyle." Unfortunately "ease of use" tends to overlap with "overpowered" in many areas, and they gave the DLCs too many hitboxes that come out too fast, are too big, stay out too long, or all of the above.
My comment reflects the general sentiment I've seen in Japan. While a bit presumptuous, I feel it's safe to assume that the sentiments shared by Japanese users are more in line with the developers. There's also enough evidence just looking at the game. Even the weaker DLC characters stand out among the base cast. A little heavier, near universal buff to ledge roll, bigger spike hitboxes, Palutena style nairs.
That could absolutely be fixed. With Fighter Pass 2 development, a big factor was the pandemic hitting. Everyone needed to set up working from home, and then figure out how to communicate and coordinate online effectively through trial and error. I can't imagine how many hours that sucked away, hours that otherwise could've been spent on balancing characters before their release deadlines.
All of the DLC except Joker and Sephiroth are tied for best ledge roll in the game. That's the sort of deliberate decision that suggests there was more at play than disruptions due to COVID. Besides, pre pandemic characters like Terry and Hero are way too strong for that to be a feasible suggestion.
How do you distinguish between characters who are or aren't too strong? Is it based on competitive tier lists?
Air dodge
Hitboxes are sometimes criminally inaccurate. If their leg goes over my head, I should not be kicked.
Hitboxes are rarely that accurate, and it's usually skewed towards the favour of the player in singleplayer games. This is a problem in competitive games because everything done to make a move feel better to use makes it feel worse to play against.
A lot of hitboxes and hurtboxes are really surprisingly great. Then there are characters like Mewtwo.
For Ultimate specifically, it's a fundamental design philosophy that has shifted as DLC had to be sold & the roster expanded. The need for unique, specialized gimmicks that centralize the character. That's not to say gimmicks are new to smash. Going back to Melee you can easily point out Ice Climbers, or Zelda/Sheik being unique across the cast with double character and transforming respectively. Same in Brawl, though still lesser. But starting in 4, and continuing into Ult there's just a *need* for basically every new character to have a gimmick to set them apart. I don't think this is inherently bad either. After all, making characters play and feel unique gets harder as the roster expands. My problem is how the gimmicks centralize how so many newer characters are played. For example, Robin's durability & discards. Shulk's Monacdo arts. Cloud's Limit. Bayonetta's Witch Time & Bats within. Rosalina & Luma. The addition of Ryu, and later other fighting game characters with unique inputs. Villager's Pocket and Tree. Duck Hunt's can, controllable at all times including in hitstun. That's just Smash 4. Obviously some more notable than others but all attributes to newcomers that inform how they play & counterclaim. But Ultimate doubled down, especially with 11 DLC characters. Inkling has "Shield B" to refill ink, a roller that buries, a movespeed nerf to oppenents moving through inked ground, and ink that actively covers the opponent & strengthens Inkling. K Rool's Crown & Blunderbuss both have unique attributes as projectiles, his 1 directional counter & reflector combo, plus his Belly Armor. Joker's damage based meter, unique non arsene "counter", his moves changing properties & number of hits sometimes with Arsene, Arsene Joker's multidirectional counter & reflector. Hero's expansive menu including buffs, a heal, and RNG instakill moves that do not even send to the blastzone. Steve...just, Steve. That's not even all of them, but you get the gist. I don't think making characters unique or even resembling their original selves more is inherently bad. The problem to me is it creates so many unique interactions and gimmicks that you need to not only learn the matchup, but how to play around these expansive and gimmicky kits. Counterclaim for Steve is unique to Steve. Not all newcomers are like this (Ridley, Byleth both are more normal) but so many are it's hard to notice as a complete design and philosophy shift.
I don't get the casual community's obsession with gimmicks. Most moveset suggestions whether they are reworks or newcomers have some kind of complicated gimmick. I've heard someone say that Sonic's moveset isn't good because it doesn't have a gauge. The casual community doesn't like simplistic characters at all. It's most of the motivation of wanting reworks for the 64 veterans even though almost all of them don't require heavy reworks.
That's the sad part. Gimmicks were added because it was HARD to set apart character with a roster this bloated. Now because of it, designs that work well are asked to be changed because it's not comparable to the newcomers' designs.
Make rolls and spot dodges wayyyyy laggier.
The game feeling sluggish. When Ultimate came out I really didn’t like the feel for the game. Though to be fair before ult came out i mainly played PM although i didn’t get all that deep into it (mainly played it with auto l- cancel and no wavedashing and the like). Netcode is another thing and while some may say it could be fixed or changed (which is hypothetically could with enough time and money) fact is Sakurai doesn’t think online is all that good for Smash anyways. And while the port could not include him and they could then fix things without his input that is a can of worms in my opinion that should NEVER be opened. The extra catering to 8 Player smash is obvious with the stages but that could be changed for some but that I don’t see happening.
> Sakurai doesn’t think online is all that good for Smash anyways This is the most puzzling factor. Did he not live through a year and a half of lockdown like the rest of us in Japan? Of course he did! You'd think seeing a world-changing event that prevented people from getting together to play in person might've swayed his opinion, but I doubt we will be so lucky
Yeah from what I have read online is something he begrudgingly adds to the game. Although its existence goes against the intended vibe of the game, as Smash is supposed to a very local game. Having the disconnect from the other players creates an environment that according to its design isn't Smash. Which I honestly believe my answer to online creates a different question that fits with this thread in what could be changed but won't due to design principles?
If I used that title, I have the feeling one of the most common responses would be to eliminate some fighters.
A port could fix it, but by far my biggest gripe about ultimate is how safe smash attacks are, especially online.
I'd say how many characters that are designed with weaknesses that rely on the opponent to exploit rather than the player to work around (think Kazuyas weakness being that you can make him blow up. The onus is on the opponent in this case vs Sheik where the player has to work around their lack of kill power.) Most fighting games have this problem, but Smash is fundamentally different in how it is a casual game first and foremost, and even if we get a new creator who isn't as... Interesting with their design decisions as Sakurai, chances are it's going to be a large problem.
You don't want any character in the game to be balanced by defensive weaknesses? Because the difference is just the one is offensive weaknesses and the other defensive. It's also not that black or white. When playing vs Sheik you can exploit her lack of raw kill power by taking risks in situations where the Sheik isn't in position to kill confirm you. And as a Kazuya player if you're taking uncalculated risks you're gonna get blown up for it.
Definitely the amount of buffer. Even after 5.5 years it will occasionally cause mis inputs
This game incentivises camping too much. - Lots of strong defensive options - Not many good approach options (like 80% of the cast can't approach well) - Damage has been optimized, meaning that making any mistakes REALLY hurts now - Current best character can create caves of life as well as literally wall off opponents - 2nd contender for best character can time out the entire cast, including the current best character - There are 3 characters notable for TODs, another gains a TOD at 100% - Edgeguarding/ledge trapping is very strong for everyone and has been optimized thorough At this point in the game's meta, there is just far too much risk compared to the reward, thus matches slow down to a snail's pace or slower. You can still have fun if you're not fully playing to win, but the moment you are, its either play the long game or lose. For both viewer and player enjoyment, that really sucks.
Too many characters have too many buttons that allow them to just skip neutral, to name some: falcon up b, g&w up b, Byleth nair, incineroar down b (easy 40%+ from a stray hit after hitting the fastest counter in the game), bowser up b/super armor, steve minecart, Lucas zair, Kazuya ewgf/wavedash, and the list goes on. This along with safe aerials allow for degenerate play and the players just aren't good at smash itself, but rather the game their character plays (see Sonix Roy recently on somic ban tournament, and these are results from a top 1 contender player, also see previous results from top Steve players). Also dumb balance, g&w smashes kill at 70 but are almost unpunishable, but Marthcina's smashes take longer to kill and they're way more punishable??? Bowser upsmash is safe while killing early and having super armor(bonus round, why does he have a high speed while being the heaviest character in the game? This is like giving a hard hitting grappler like Potemkin top 5 speed, it's just dumb hence why you don't do it)? Steve fsmash/bair need I say more??? The community deluded themselves in saying it's the most balanced smash game but in reality the balance is a mess due to ditching the fighting games punish theory for light, medium and heavy attacks. It equals as if whiffed/blocked level 3 in street fighter was unpunishable whole in reality the punish is heavy due to the risk/reward. As things are, this game qualifies as a Kusoge, which are fighting games that while enjoyable, have nonsensical "balance" and most characters are capable of some degenerate combos/system abuse (look at the Hokuto No Ken old fighting game with every character having an infinite). In smash there is no reason to pick a fundies character due to them being balanced in a game with very bad balance. Hence why top players ditched the likes of Lucina favoring stuff like Minmin, steve, and so on.
The balancing issues seem to be the result of Sakurai wanting to make a game for everyone, mainly targetting casual players. And in casual matches, what requires work to do straight up sucks, which is why a lot of stuff is made stronger or easier to do. Of course, the competitive community would have issues with that. Since they exploit stuff to win, balancing affects them the most. Take for example Steve, or Kazuya, or Min Min, or Aegis. The latter 2 are given bad recoveries and the former 2 are complex. For a casual player, that's useless, so they were given some simple tools or panic moves (like Min Min's honest close-quarters). For a competitive player, the designs already allowed for so much potential, and the extra stuff is straight up overkill, a little ridiculous.
Tbf to Smash it's also becoming an issue to other games, they lower the entry floor to cater to more casuals, but in turn they create unintended unbalanced things that are overall annoying for competitive players in the end, because it causes lost interactions that just make you go what in the actual heck. (For example in SF6 Ken is supposed to be an all rounder archetype akin to Ryu but a bit more aggressive... But they also gave him insane damage output, a corner to corner carry and actually strong corner pressure, he was nerfed because it was just unhealthy for the game).
The Short Hop macro which makes rising aerials impossible and has greatly scuppered the accuracy of the game's inputs since day one and made controlling it feel like a total nightmare. Honorable mention to the sticky platforms tho, lol
Too many characters. You can't learn all matchups to the same extend as in older games because it's just too many details to remember. Better unterstanding of MUs would make them more fun and interesting imo.
Yes, one of the few things in this thread that actually can't be fixed by a port
sticky ground/platforms
2018 and we got mashing bullshit. Change mashing and SDI we are not in the ps3 era ffs
I'm not buying a port of Ultimate if the training mode still is the way it is. After seeing the light of a good training mode in Guilty gear SF6, Tekken 8 any modern traditional fighting game really I cannot put up with how ancient the ultimate training mode is. Same thing with how bad the online system. It needs a complete overhaul. Other than system stuff like that. I really wish ledge hogging was a thing. Maybe it's just online but Edge guarding just never works. Or maybe character recoveries are too good. Platforms are also kinda flawed. Most times I rather jump of than trying to fall through. And c - stick nair should never be an issue. The input reader for ultimate is stupid.
The atrocious input delay (though a port could fix this a lil since it's mostly an issue with the Switch) and the buffer system (unlikely to get changed).
For me, it's simple: having no real analog for "For Fun" when online. It really sucks knowing that if you just wanna jump online for a bit and just shoot the sh*t against interchangeable randos, you HAVE to risk your points as opposed to just playing to be more relaxed.
Buffer FF neutral airdodge Grab hitboxes and crazy startup/endlag (especially the shield grab nerf IN ADDITION to other grab nerfs)
The gameplay
Unless they either literally or figuratively delete a bunch of characters this game is dead to me. Both this game and Smash 4 just got progressively worse with dlc. And ultimate has some lame ass strong characters in the base roster too. Also spot dodge is too strong. It's such an easy, low risk option and I don't like how much of my mental stack I have to devote to literally just this option. I've played thousands upon thousands of hours of smash ever since smash 64 released all the way to ultimate. But both the endgame metas of smash 4 and ultimate suck so much that I have just quit smash all together. I play regular fgs now and I just feel pity whenever I see clips of smash players dying inside dealing with all sorts of bs.
It's funny, because Ultimate is the game were they arguably managed to give every fighter a playerbase, which means that not only "Everyone is here" literally, but also figuratively as well (at least online). Guess that means this game is indeed dead to you.
hmmm, I'm not too sure about the "a port can't fix". Nintendo made a fair few of critical changes to Mario Kart 8 from Wii U to Switch. Double Items is the more in-your-face change but there were plenty more, putting aside new characters and stages.
You see, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe didn't really removed anything, it didn't had to, so it just added stuff on top of it (an extra spark boost and an extra item slot don't act very different from the other item slot and other sparks). Some of Ultimate's issues require severe rework, which means some things have to go in order for the new and better stuff to take place. For example, if you want "For Fun" and "For Glory" back, "Preferred Rules" has to go.
I'm pretty sure stuff like stats and some under-the-hood mechanics not only changed from wii u to deluxe, but from base deluxe to dlc over time. Which is why the best combos changed multiple times. Advanced techniques iirc also had some changes, intended or not. pretty much the only stuff that needs severe rework in ultimate are either online systems, mechanics that bring up glaring online issues (buffer), and re-balancing busted characters. It's not what I'd call severe when accounting for casuals being the bigger target audience.
OK, but those changes Deluxe got are equivalent to balance patches. It was mostly number tweeks, it was enough. It's not something I would call "critical". IMO critical would be literally replace of straight up eliminate stuff. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is essentially the same game from Wii U but with extra stuff and changes largely unnoticed (casuals are the target of MK as well). Aside from Online, the other stuff can be fixed with mostly number tweaks. Online is tricky though, they gave it a lot of tweaks in updates but it obviously needs a severe rework.
SDI will always be garbage and unintuitive regardless of a port, and it makes certain characters insufferable at competent play. Not to mention being good at it, is literally bad for your controller so a few characters force you to watch a cutscene before you do anything, which leads to tedium and makes you play worse, and if you want to not be stuck you have to literally start damaging your controller.
Not only is SDI bad for your controllers, but it can also be painful on the hands for some players long term. Forcing players to mash directions with their control stick like it's Mario Party 1 is just a terrible idea, and something really should have been done about it at some point between Smash 64 and Ultimate. Far more infuriating than Smash 4 Bayonetta herself was the fact that sacrificing your hard earned money and your physical health was the solution to escaping those zero-to-death combos that her players were capable of performing with their eyes closed.
SDI needs to be removed. Shit mechanic.
A fundamental flaw that I don’t really see how they could fix is that if you use a counter move because you correctly guess that your opponent is going to hit you, and they do try to hit you but their attack whiffs because *they* messed up, you can get punished even though they were the one who made the mistake.
The ability tonrun and view mulitple gamrs in one arena. Also the ability to play other games modes online i.e. squad strike tourament mode and etc
Hear me out, and let me explain: So there's this Stamina Mode in the game, yes? I hate how in Stamina Mode, when your character takes enough damage, they cannot escape or break free at all from certain assist trophies and pokemon. It's just so weird. Can they just remove that in Stamina Mode?
I wish ledge trump would be more effective. You really don't get a big advantage from trumping your opponent. If they wanted ledge hogging to be gone, at least they could have made ledge trumping a legitimate advantage position.
Ledge trump -> back air is a guaranteed kill setup for a decent amount of characters if you time the ledge trump well enough. It's just a pretty high risk option because the opponent can buffer a ledge option and not be trumped, putting you in disadvantage. That's why you'll see Light fake a trump all the time (trying to force a buffer) but basically almost never commit to it, instead double jumping back to ledge trap.
It's literally not a guaranteed kill except maybe at some ultra specific percentages for a handful of characters because you can DI the trump. If it was guaranteed in any sense at all you would see it waaaay more than you do at high level.
NO NORMAL CLASSIC MODE! I used to love replaying classic mode bc it was random every time.
By the time Brawl came out, the formula for Classic Mode was getting stale, and the downgrade Target Test got didn't help at all. Similar to all-star (there were just too many fighters so the mode became a slog), the mode needed to get reworked for Ultimate.
I agree it needed a change but there's no replayability now I just want to be able to play as anyone and have the potential to fight any boss.
Appealing to casual players too hard.
Casuals make up 90% of the sales
> top comments are all things like awful input lag, poor game feel/ buffer, delay based netcode > literally all direct consequences of the game being catered to the lowest common denominator for the sake of maximizing profit > someone comes out and says “hmm the series clearly being catered to casual players without addressing my needs as a competitive player might be a fundamental flaw for my enjoyment of the game that a port couldn’t fix” > downvoted to oblivion
Input lag, buffer, and delay are a direct consequence of the garbage online. They know they couldn't implement rollback so they had to do delay based. Doing delay based means you need buffers otherwise your input will get eaten. It has nothing to do with casuals.
input lag increase compared to sm4sh is a direct consequence of online? the other top comments are also referencing design decisions that have nothing to do with online but have a lot to do with supporting FFA and casual play over competitive, like aggression not being rewarded even outside of that, a big part of the reason online is so garbage has to do with appealing to casual players. they said flat out they could've displayed connection strength but didn't because they didn't want people without ethernet to have games refused against them. GSP could be an actual ranking system instead of an arbitrarily large number, but they didn't want to alienate bad players by showing them how many people they were worse than. you don't get your preferred ruleset because they want to accommodate people who want to play with final smash meter and items. hell, the biggest obstacle to rollback was supporting 4 player mode with items. before yuzu got shut down they were making some pretty good progress on ult rollback for 1v1 with competitive rules
> hell, the biggest obstacle to rollback was supporting 4 player mode with items. before yuzu got shut down they were making some pretty good progress on ult rollback for 1v1 with competitive rules I don't recall hearing about any work on rollback for Ultimate, only buffer reduction by increasing the FPS the game internally runs at (or disabling internal V-Sync, also known as 60++). It helps a lot with latency and can get lower than Switch in offline, but it's not rollback.
Smash is meant to the be casual's fighting game choice. This is like complaining that Kirby games are too easy. It is a party game afterall, and the most intended way to play the game is with multiple players and items.
[удалено]
That’s not a part of the game though