Official Competitive Character Impressions 2.0

[KirbySquad101]

What's funny to me when thinking about how Light lost against acola when he absolutely dominated yonni/DDee was that acola didn't even really do much "haha funny block man" gimmicks like yonni/DDee like planking. In fact, he basically did the opposite of that in his set against Light, and his games vs. yonni could not have looked any more different because of that.

In all the games I say yonni play he spent too much trying to set-up a block scenario and then proceeded to preemptively attempt to swat at Light, and when he started throwing in unsafe options like grabs and USmashes, that gave Light all the in the world to find an opening. As Minordeth pointed out, acola instead just waited until Light actually came to him, and started abusing things like OoS-Footstool anvil or OoS-NAir. It's a very simple change in a gameplan that ended up getting acola far more neutral wins than either yonni or DDee.

So then Light should just approach the MU like how he approaches the GnW MU, right? You can't abuse your OoS options if you're getting grabbed after all, and Fox's grab combined with his speed isn't something you can just predict.

Then acola starts placing one block on the ground in front of him.

Suddenly Light no longer has that option to just dash in and grab like he can in the GnW MU. Now it's "get rid of the block and then go for the grab" or "wait for the block to disappear, then go for the grab" or "try jumping over it". And all of these create scenarios that heavily favor Steve, even moreso when considering Fox's mediocre grab reward.

If he's waiting for the block to disappear, that gives acola more time to mine and he can simply just place another block once that one disappears. If he's attempting to break it, he's leaving himself dangerously close within Minecart distance. If he's jumping over it - like what we saw Light do constantly - he's getting USmash'd or OoS'd to death. Once again, it's a much more simple gameplan than what most Steves go for (in fact, way more "Smash-like" than one would think), but it's so much more effective.

I think the fact that acola can so easily take a gameplan from a top 5 player that normally works and completely flip it on its head is - to be frank - the makings of a top 5, or even a top 3 player. It's a little early to make that call, as I'm curious to see how he ends up reacting to player's counterplay against this gameplan, but there's definitely a lot to look forward to with him.

Now on if a Steve ban is warranted or not: Is the concern for Steve valid? In my opinion, yes. Acola and Onin both have been winning majors/regionals left and right, DDee, places top 8 at his first supermajor, and even yonni is on the climb to top player status; there is signs of dominance brewing within the character. Does Steve look like he's on his way to becoming a top 1-3 character? From both a results and a thoerycraft perspective, there's a very convincing argument to be had. BUT the fact that Steve is so prevalent now and there is so many good Steve mains means there's even less excuse to grind the MU out now. If players put in the work to find counterplay to Steve and he still ends up being a problem? Then we can talk about a ban. As of right now, though, this feels like a very knee-jerky reaction, especially when we've shared similar sentiments towards Aegis becoming a problem - who in the long run - ended up not being nearly problematic enough to justify any action being taken against them.

 

[Sucumbio]

I actually think the FP2 characters are mostly fine. It's Steve and Kazuya who are the big outliers. Kazuya's just not properly balanced from the ground up straight up, whereas Steve just needs a few changes to be in line with the rest of the roster (ie making sure he doesn't get 0~80% conversions so easily.

Yeah I'm not complaining or anything I don't mean to imply they're game breaking or unfair. They're tuned is all. Heavy bursts, blinding speed, insane damage output, etc. This was pretty much a grand demonstration of FP2 and they're all great and yet all similar to each other in some way that sets them apart from base (again lacking insight on min min or Sora). So no, not "Broken" like 20 years ago and ppl be like you can't use him tho... It's just a hyperbolic moment of excited revelry at just how great those sets were.

Besides Fox is like top 5 now in this meta with joker Aegis Steve and......... Dunno. Not Pikachu not Sephiroth not mm or Sora I don't think... So dunno. maybe tied for last top 5 is everyone else down to like 20 and that's all high tier and everyone else mid from 20 to 60 arranged whatever and then low tiers.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Personally I don't anything anyone on Smash Twitter are actually serious on banning Steve or Kazuya. I think players are simply venting their frustrations on how both of these characters are designed, which is valid. Both characters are frankly enough, two of the most poorly designed characters in Smash history.

Kazuya is more straightforward: he gets eaten alive in disadvantage and neutral 90% of the time, but when he touches you he deletes you. Players were already frustrated with polarizing characters like Luigi and Pichu, but his inclusion only adds more fuel to the fire. Metagame-wise, he is definitely not problematic at all. Most players consider him only high tier, which is where all the other FGC characters are currently considered to reside as well (I personally don't think he is even the best of the FGCs, but that is a story for another time).

In the case of Steve, you can definitely tell the developers definitely had polarizing stuff in place to balance out his powerful strengths. It comes in form of his abysmal mobility stats, rather limited range, and having almost all of his tools being dictated by a universal resource mechanic, a mechanic that is designed for the Steve player to actually think carefully before throwing out his powerful tools. The problem is that his faithfulness to his source material (lightning fast frame data, riskless mining speed, the entire existence of blocks) is so inherently game-breaking that it somehow counteracts these polarizing weaknesses, weaknesses that would be a borderline death sentence to most other characters in the game.

I don't think Steve is even remotely close to banworthy. He is simply another strong character in a stream of other strong characters, and it is still debated that he is even top 5 or even top 10. I think a lot of these knee-jerk reactions is just straight-up unfair to acola, who is a godlike player who overcomes matchups other top Steve players fall to (as explained above by KirbySquad).

A frustrating thing about both of these characters is that it is very hard to grind either matchups. Both characters play an entirely different game, but both characters are also not very easy to play at all (especially Kazuya). So unless you play and completely understand the character yourself, it will be hard for you right there. You need to personally know a good player of either character to actually effectively grind the matchup, which is not as common as you would think.

In the case of Steve, you need to understand all the effective layers of the character, which is definitely something you cannot do overnight, and it is something that will occur as the admittedly still underdeveloped counterplay against Steve gets developed more. There is no excuse why the top players in the Gimvitational was hit by so many anvils as they did.

 

[Sucumbio]

Personally I don't anything anyone on Smash Twitter are actually serious on banning Steve or Kazuya.

This.

People just excited. It's awesome watching stocks get deleted in under 30 seconds like a Tekken match (hence the appeal to "quicker" fgs among other FGC).

Been awhile since wombo combo level hype but it's back baby and all day.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Crown 2 was a major tournament that happened yesterday in Utah. Not very big event on paper, but a handful of top class players entered.
Here are the results:

1st: Tea
2nd: Dabuz
3rd: Shuton
4th: Zomba
5th: Kurama
5th: KEN
7th: varun
7th: Lui$

9th: BassMage
9th: Goblin
9th: LeoN
9th: rydra
13th: Sticccy
13th: MVD
13th: JoJoDaHoBo
13th: MFA

17th: Ty
17th: AciD
17th: H4DS
17th: Moonboyjosh
17th: Peckham
17th: Pow
17th: Scend
17th: Klaatu


Dabuz came so agonizingly close to winning this major after reverse 3-0'ing Tea in winner's finals. Tea then got a reverse 6-0 against Dabuz in grand finals, showing how amazing his adaptation skills are. Pac-Man vs Rosalina doesn't sound like the easiest matchup either thanks to Rosa down B.

Either way, enjoy all the Olimar footage from this tournament because there is quite a bit to digest to.

 

[Arthur97]

Can you really call Kazuya doing normal Kazuya things "hype?" Then again, I'm pretty disillusioned with the term.

I do agree though that Kazuya is terribly designed, but not really for the polarization, but he rather defeats the point of Smash's gameplay. He's essentially playing Tekken and goes against the simplistic control scheme of Smash. Ryu and Ken kinda flirted with that with their inputs (but mostly their tap and smash moves which I just...do not like), but Kazuya is on another level. Yes, they apparently did a great job of making it feel like Tekken, but did they stop and think if that was a good thing for a game like Smash?

And, yeah, time to drop the fear mongering for Pyra and Mythra. They're fine.

 

[Wigglerman]

Can you really call Kazuya doing normal Kazuya things "hype?" Then again, I'm pretty disillusioned with the term.

I do agree though that Kazuya is terribly designed, but not really for the polarization, but he rather defeats the point of Smash's gameplay. He's essentially playing Tekken and goes against the simplistic control scheme of Smash. Ryu and Ken kinda flirted with that with their inputs (but mostly their tap and smash moves which I just...do not like), but Kazuya is on another level. Yes, they apparently did a great job of making it feel like Tekken, but did they stop and think if that was a good thing for a game like Smash?

And, yeah, time to drop the fear mongering for Pyra and Mythra. They're fine.

I personally have no issue with a character 'not feeling like Smash'. IMO, Steve doesn't feel like Smash at all but that's fine and his inputs are simple. Characters that break the mold on 'what is or isn't x' are interesting to me. I remember Ed in SFV was kinda the talk of the town because he had very simple inputs, no real command specials so to speak and this was causing people to criticize him for being 'easy' or 'breaking Street Fighter conventions' and, to a lesser extent, 'Capcom dabbling in 'baby inputs' that might spell the future for SF and doom the franchise'.


Kazuya still fundamentally 'plays like a Smash character'. He just plays like a heavily grounded one. Does he have command inputs? Sure. A lot of them? Yeah. But I don't see why Smash doesn't have room for more simple designed characters to heavily complex ones. Most fighting games have this aspect of characters that are easy to pick up and play, requiring the bare essentials of knowledge and skill to perform well with among equal peers. Then they have those that are ones you need to lab for a long time to get any degree of consistency with them to perform well against equal peers.

Having a select few members of the roster entering that 'complex and difficult' isn't a negative to me. I just can't see how it can be a negative to have high skill characters. And not just 'ok, my kill confirm requires strict timing otherwise I can't ever kill proper' levels of difficult but legit needing to perform high skill inputs, consistently and netting big reward for being able to do so but not even being an unfair character even among the rest of the roster when there's also far easier characters who can get similar or better results without demanding nearly as much from the player.

edit: As for Kazuya doing Kazuya things being hype? Every time. Because I appreciate the skill it takes to actually land that sauce. And it still looks dope and seeing Kazuya go to town on beloved characters is just hilarious to me.

 

[Sucumbio]

I personally have no issue with a character 'not feeling like Smash'.

Yes x10

Almost every character is just unique enough already but adding the layers of Snake, DDD, K Rool, ROB, Villager, etc etc etc makes the roster so huge and everything so different I only truly main 1 character and have like 3 secondaries lol. Unlike way earlier games where I used everybody really well.

...This was causing people to criticize him for being 'easy' or 'breaking Street Fighter conventions' and, to a lesser extent, 'Capcom dabbling in 'baby inputs' that might spell the future for SF and doom the franchise'.

Funny you should mention cause talk around town is the whole game is getting Smash treatment for inputs lol I'm like eh, no not really but yes, inputs are changed in 6. Gonna have to learn it from scratch. I'm good with this.

edit: As for Kazuya doing Kazuya things being hype? Every time. Because I appreciate the skill it takes to actually land that sauce. And it still looks dope and seeing Kazuya go to town on beloved characters is just hilarious to me.

Wird. I've been waiting for these types of sets since Kazuya dropped and it's finally here.

 

[Arthur97]

Yes x10

Almost every character is just unique enough already but adding the layers of Snake, DDD, K Rool, ROB, Villager, etc etc etc makes the roster so huge and everything so different I only truly main 1 character and have like 3 secondaries lol. Unlike way earlier games where I used everybody really well.

And yet every example you listed still plays like a Smash fighter. They have gimmicks, but they all play like Smash. Even extremely technical fighters are generally easy to use in Smash. Kazuya meanwhile has so many moves he kinda muddies the streamlined experience. Moves that for your average joe schmoe, they probably aren't going to have the best time using. Or rather, trying to use. Ryu is also iffy thanks to tap moves, and even proximity moves, but even then they generally have standard inputs. A forward tilt is a forward tilt. No back down tilt.

Also, if you just wanna watch stocks deleted in 30 seconds, maybe you're watching the wrong game? Smash is, by nature, a longer game than other fighting games. That's just how it is. If you don't like that, almost sounds like you don't like the way Smash works.

 

[blackghost]

Can you really call Kazuya doing normal Kazuya things "hype?" Then again, I'm pretty disillusioned with the term.

I do agree though that Kazuya is terribly designed, but not really for the polarization, but he rather defeats the point of Smash's gameplay. He's essentially playing Tekken and goes against the simplistic control scheme of Smash. Ryu and Ken kinda flirted with that with their inputs (but mostly their tap and smash moves which I just...do not like), but Kazuya is on another level. Yes, they apparently did a great job of making it feel like Tekken, but did they stop and think if that was a good thing for a game like Smash?

And, yeah, time to drop the fear mongering for Pyra and Mythra. They're fine.

every single third party guest character plays like their source games. thats something to be praised.
we have had inputs and alternative controls in smash for over a decade now. getting upset about that is kinda just looking for something to be unhappy with. having one character be hard to play isnt a bad thing. unless you rather have EWGF be a single button press?
i dont see how Kazuya doesn't fit into smash gameplay. it really just reads to me as "i dont like this character in smash."
sakurai wanted these characters to have thier moves because otherwise, they wouldnt feel like themselves. Sakurai is a fighting game fan and he knew with smash controls these characters would either lose the moves or he would have to get creative. he choose option 2.

hype is always subjective theres really no point in arguing.

 

[Sucumbio]

And yet every example you listed still plays like a Smash fighter.

True! I was saying even base roster has enough variety such as those characters. FP2 takes things to another level beyond many characters.

But yeah I mean, it's not actually that different to me. Like, base characters have uses for each input that Kazuya has not counting specials or command inputs. Diagonal forward up tilt is still different than forward tilt in other words. And Kazuya ftilt isn't too different than Ganondorf. It's adding diagonal specials that confused a lot of people but honestly you don't see them out too often it's all ewgf setups and rage drive.

Also, if you just wanna watch stocks deleted in 30 seconds, maybe you're watching the wrong game? Smash is, by nature, a longer game than other fighting games. That's just how it is. If you don't like that, almost sounds like you don't like the way Smash works.

Uhh... No??

I love a good 0 to death is all.

 

[blackghost]

And yet every example you listed still plays like a Smash fighter. They have gimmicks, but they all play like Smash. Even extremely technical fighters are generally easy to use in Smash. Kazuya meanwhile has so many moves he kinda muddies the streamlined experience. Moves that for your average joe schmoe, they probably aren't going to have the best time using. Or rather, trying to use. Ryu is also iffy thanks to tap moves, and even proximity moves, but even then they generally have standard inputs. A forward tilt is a forward tilt. No back down tilt.

Also, if you just wanna watch stocks deleted in 30 seconds, maybe you're watching the wrong game? Smash is, by nature, a longer game than other fighting games. That's just how it is. If you don't like that, almost sounds like you don't like the way Smash works.

Which smash game doesn't have stocks getting insta deleted? Is it 64 with its true combos and massive hitstun and no recovery? If you dislike Kazuya and fgx characters you're gonna HATE 64.
Is it melee with its well everything?
Is it brawl with chain grabs?
Is it 4 with rage and up air chains and rage? (yes rage is listed twice)
Or is it ultimate with high damage combos and high reward advantage state tip tiers?
What is this narrative that smash hasn't had stocks be taken quickly come from? Because it ain't reality.

 

[NairWizard]

The sentiment among whom? Twitch chat? Becuase in twitch chat and reddit and smash Twitter whatever character just win is broken and whoever lost is trash or overrated.

Twitch chat when light fight ferps: lol Kazuya sucks.
Twitch chat when Riddles fought someone with Kazuya: omg KAZUYA IS SO BROKEN.

I think this is a mischaracterization. People can have hypocritical beliefs sometimes, but people are rarely this fundamentally fickle. The people who are saying Kazuya sucks are different users from the ones saying Kazuya is broken (at least most of the time. Sure, there are a few hypocrites), and both groups only have incentive to post when they see validation for their beliefs.

And yet every example you listed still plays like a Smash fighter. They have gimmicks, but they all play like Smash. Even extremely technical fighters are generally easy to use in Smash. Kazuya meanwhile has so many moves he kinda muddies the streamlined experience. Moves that for your average joe schmoe, they probably aren't going to have the best time using. Or rather, trying to use. Ryu is also iffy thanks to tap moves, and even proximity moves, but even then they generally have standard inputs. A forward tilt is a forward tilt. No back down tilt.

But this only matters for the person playing Kazuya, not against, so there's no loss if you simply don't... play Kazuya.

Fighting Kazuya is somewhat like fighting Luigi or Ice Climbers. It's hard and boring, but we've been doing it for decades in smash now; there's nothing new here. In fact, I like Kazuya's tradeoff of having a couple of really strong not-disjointed neutral tools in exchange for fast aerials and blizzard/fireball, and I'd rather play against Kazuya than play against Luigi.

Aegis and Min Min break some of the fundamental principles of smash way more clearly than Kazuya. Aegis can swap without consequence to gain access to another kit, a way better version of Pokemon Trainer's swap mechanic or Zelda/Sheik transformations that forces you to corner-camp them instead of fighting for center stage, and Min Min has aerial smashes and stage-length normals; hardly need to go in depth into why that warps her matchups.

Have these characters been problematic? They threatened to be! But they weren't in the end, as you are quick to point out. Counterplay developed despite how much these characters twist neutral gameplay in their matchups.

The same will happen for Steve, and Kazuya doesn't even really come into the picture at all because you fight him the same way you fight a dozen other characters.

Either way, smash can afford to mess with the core principles here and there to make room for interesting additions.

Kazuya is fine and a great addition to smash.

 

[Minordeth]

Disagree. It's not just block shenanigans--Acola's spacing and fundamentals are block-solid. It's hard to call who's the better player, but Acola is really, really, really good.

Acola is really, really good. The fact is that Light has better wins over a longer period of time. My main point was that Light had reason enough to believe he was the better player.

He saw reoccuring set ups and clearly went into grand finals with a game plan. His primary mistake was confusing what Acola had shown so far as the extent of his skill.

The elite Steve's aren't using set play. That's first and foremost. Acola is definitely a top 10 player. You don't have the weekend he just had and not be top ten.

How else would you define using block walls under corner plats?

I agree that Acola is likely a top 10 player, though. Given his online tourney sets, his results shouldn't be as shocking.

Lastly Whitaker you so sure Light is better than acola? Really would like an answer to that. I don't get the Steve hate I see the character is way more fun imo than palutena and some of the other smash ultimate high tiers.

In terms of wins, sure. This last weekend was the first time most people had even heard of Acola (or Asimo) so I'm sympathetic to the argument that Light is better based on consistency and performance. I think it's limited, not because results don't reflect skill level, but because comparing JP and NA generally boils down to "player X would beat player Y because player Z is the top main in NA/JP" type arguments.

For instance, where does Yoshidora place in terms of skill? Afaik, he hasn't been to any other region, and yet he has more set wins over Acola than anyone else.

Do I personally think that Acola is a top 10 player? Yeah. I suspect most of Yoshidora's improvement is due to the online rivalry the two have had over the past year.

His decision making and general skill suggest he is a up there, but that's a harder sell to the Twitter crowd. I also thought YB was top 10-15 in the world for as long as he was active, but again, results vs apparent skill level.

I actually think the FP2 characters are mostly fine. It's Steve and Kazuya who are the big outliers. Kazuya's just not properly balanced from the ground up straight up, whereas Steve just needs a few changes to be in line with the rest of the roster (ie making sure he doesn't get 0~80% conversions so easily)

Absolutely disagree imo. Aegis has plateaued rather significantly as a fighter. They're still terrific and incredible, but they're not dominating tournaments anymore.

The ironic thing about the big conversions that Acola got over the weekend is that they aren't easy to get. It seemed to become a running joke in the Steve Discord over the weekend.

Steve can absolutely get 0-50% combos fairly easily, but so can a majority of the cast.

The only characters regularly getting 0-80% true combos off stray combo starters are Kazuya, Falco, Luigi, Bayo and maybe Ice climbers.

I have no problem with Kazuya because he tends to reward the hefty time sink required just to get him operational. I'd rather see a character like Ken give consistent reward equivalent to the effort, rather than see much happen to Kazuya.

 

[toonito]

Character data update from OrionStats, updated from 3 weeks ago - this injects numerous nationals & majors. Steve moves to a shaky 4th, Diddy and Kazuya rise by 6 spots each, and some lacking results from Pichu/Gren see improvements. Palutena's lead also dramatically increases. pic.twitter.com/aPB0YwYgIp

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) June 23, 2022

Orionstats updated 6/22

goes up 2 spots from #6 to #4

biggest jump from last data (6/1): +6
biggest drop from last data (6/1): -7

 

[Kokiden]

I highly doubt any character is going to get banned, but I can absolutely see the meta shifting to have more Steve's (which isn't something I'm all to thrilled about tbh)

 

[Hippieslayer]

Kazuya is a horrible character overall. Doesn't fit the smash philosophy at all. Ie easy to learn, hard to master. The analogue stick isn't made for the type of inputs you have to do with him too and if you can't consistently do his stuff there's no point in playing him. Such an entry barrier does suck. Especially when it's made worse because it doesn't take the type of controller used into account. You are either able to consistently spam his ewgf and dash or your Kazuya is useless. This is pretty lame. Smash is way more complex than traditional fighting games in a lot of ways. I don't think smash needs or benefits from entry barriers like that.

Because of this very few play Kazuya. For almost everyone he's just an annoying touch of death character you have to deal with sometimes.

His saving grace is that he's fairly exciting to watch, and thus won't hurt viewership.

Steve to me isn't fundamentally bad, he just needs some tuning. Diamond and gold should be weaker and he should be stronger without them. Down air is overtuned as hell, it shouldn't K.O as early as it does.

Minecart should perhaps do slightly less damage. Blocks should maybe break a little faster. I dunno. But his Dair is broken and his gold and diamond K.O power is kinda whack for sure.

Everyone should cry and whine until we get a patch. Even if Steve and Kazuya are overrated they are still annoying and bad for the scene.

 

[Rizen]

Character data update from OrionStats, updated from 3 weeks ago - this injects numerous nationals & majors. Steve moves to a shaky 4th, Diddy and Kazuya rise by 6 spots each, and some lacking results from Pichu/Gren see improvements. Palutena's lead also dramatically increases. pic.twitter.com/aPB0YwYgIp

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) June 23, 2022

Orionstats updated 6/22

goes up 2 spots from #6 to #4

biggest jump from last data (6/1): +6
biggest drop from last data (6/1): -7

This is why we look at multiple tournaments in formats like Orion stats. Aegis have staying power. They're not going anywhere; I predict they will overtake Wolf in the next few months.

Called it. Aegis passed Wolf. Although losing Spargo hurts. He was probably going to use them as secondaries. Losing top players doesn't mean they're worse characters but it will hurt their results a bit. They have Shuton and Cosmos at least. Speaking of characters who lost top players, I played vs Joker and PT recently and they're still top tiers. IMO Tweek did better with Wario and PT than Sephiroth.

 

[Emblem Lord]

Kazuya is a horrible character overall. Doesn't fit the smash philosophy at all. Ie easy to learn, hard to master. The analogue stick isn't made for the type of inputs you have to do with him too and if you can't consistently do his stuff there's no point in playing him. Such an entry barrier does suck. Especially when it's made worse because it doesn't take the type of controller used into account. You are either able to consistently spam his ewgf and dash or your Kazuya is useless. This is pretty lame. Smash is way more complex than traditional fighting games in a lot of ways. I don't think smash needs or benefits from entry barriers like that.

Because of this very few play Kazuya. For almost everyone he's just an annoying touch of death character you have to deal with sometimes.

His saving grace is that he's fairly exciting to watch, and thus won't hurt viewership.

Steve to me isn't fundamentally bad, he just needs some tuning. Diamond and gold should be weaker and he should be stronger without them. Down air is overtuned as hell, it shouldn't K.O as early as it does.

Minecart should perhaps do slightly less damage. Blocks should maybe break a little faster. I dunno. But his Dair is broken and his gold and diamond K.O power is kinda whack for sure.

Everyone should cry and whine until we get a patch. Even if Steve and Kazuya are overrated they are still annoying and bad for the scene.

You are setting yourself up for dissappointment if you think another patch is coming.

 

[Sucumbio]

Kazuya is a horrible character overall.

I'm sorry you feel that way, but to each their own.

I think he's the best proof of concept character to join the smash roster and could lead future dev to explore new heights. I am biased because I'd always hoped a Tekken rep would join especially after SF got in.

As for his specific design he's to me no more un-smash-like than anyone else but again that's a personal take.

 

[NairWizard]

It's just utterly mindblowing to me that people think Kazuya and Steve are bigger design and spectatorship challenges than Sonic. I can only imagine the hilarity if Sonic were DLC.

Let's move on, this topic is just getting silly now.

 

[Sucumbio]

Yes but before we totally drop the topics coming off the invitational

Spoiler: TLDW

"No."

 

[blackghost]

ignore this

 

[superjm]

The idea that there is a prototypical model that all characters have to fit into to be reliably called a "Smash character" is, at best, an outdated notion that died the moment Smash 4 came out and characters like Little Mac, Robin, and Rosalina came into the picture, to say nothing of the DLC. It's a disingenuous concept meant to lend fake credence to complaints about how "poorly designed" some characters are because they stray far from the mold they're used to and are stubbornly avoiding trying to adjust their mindset and acclimate to the tools these characters have. And this isn't a Steve/Kazuya thing, this has been arguably going on since mang0 established the meta.

And you know what? If Steve does end up being considered the best character in the game and as a prominent fixture in top level tournaments when all is said and done, then everyone just needs to deal with it. Learn the matchup, prepare for the eventuality of facing what the meta throws at you and roll with it, just like you would in any other Smash game.

 

[Emblem Lord]

It's just utterly mindblowing to me that people think Kazuya and Steve are bigger design and spectatorship challenges than Sonic. I can only imagine the hilarity if Sonic were DLC.

Let's move on, this topic is just getting silly now.

You spittin facts.

Sonic can time out 90% of the cast, but Kazuya is an issue?

Smash community doesn't even understand it's own meta and it's been years.

Sad.

 

[F4lcoMain]

You spittin facts.

Sonic can time out 90% of the cast, but Kazuya is an issue?

Smash community doesn't even understand it's own meta and it's been years.

Sad.

How big of a threat is a Sonic timeout actually? I've rarely seen sonic time anyone out.

 

[blackghost]

How big of a threat is a Sonic timeout actually? I've rarely seen sonic time anyone out.

how much sonic do you actually watch? sonic is toxic because his optimal win condition is to time people out. sonic that are serious about winning will interact as little as possible.

 

[Hippieslayer]

No one said Sonic was a good character though.

 

[Arthur97]

I think there may have been a fundamental misunderstanding of my point. Kazuya deleting stocks so easily with everything else he has going for him may be silly, but not my point. Also, I'm not complaining about a gimmick. While I think they can rely too heavily on gimmicks, they are nothing new. It's that he flies in the face of creating a simple to control (not master) fighting game. Everyone has an up tilt. Up smash. Special moves. etc. If you can play Smash you can probably play most of them on a basic level. All the fighting game ones though do break this mold (so does Min Min, but she actually has fewer moves so not really an issue), but Kazuya is by far the worst. He has a lot of moves, many that require more complicated inputs to so much as use. It's not adapting to fighting him either. This isn't even as much about the quantity of moves, but rather how they are accessed. He's over here playing Tekken while the others are playing Smash. It's the control scheme simply put.

 

[Sucumbio]

I think there may have been a fundamental misunderstanding of my point. Kazuya deleting stocks so easily with everything else he has going for him may be silly, but not my point. Also, I'm not complaining about a gimmick. While I think they can rely too heavily on gimmicks, they are nothing new. It's that he flies in the face of creating a simple to control (not master) fighting game. Everyone has an up tilt. Up smash. Special moves. etc. If you can play Smash you can probably play most of them on a basic level. All the fighting game ones though do break this mold (so does Min Min, but she actually has fewer moves so not really an issue), but Kazuya is by far the worst. He has a lot of moves, many that require more complicated inputs to so much as use. It's not adapting to fighting him either. This isn't even as much about the quantity of moves, but rather how they are accessed. He's over here playing Tekken while the others are playing Smash. It's the control scheme simply put.

It was a choice to include command inputs in smash. I guess it's just not for everyone.

 

[blackghost]

I think there may have been a fundamental misunderstanding of my point. Kazuya deleting stocks so easily with everything else he has going for him may be silly, but not my point. Also, I'm not complaining about a gimmick. While I think they can rely too heavily on gimmicks, they are nothing new. It's that he flies in the face of creating a simple to control (not master) fighting game. Everyone has an up tilt. Up smash. Special moves. etc. If you can play Smash you can probably play most of them on a basic level. All the fighting game ones though do break this mold (so does Min Min, but she actually has fewer moves so not really an issue), but Kazuya is by far the worst. He has a lot of moves, many that require more complicated inputs to so much as use. It's not adapting to fighting him either. This isn't even as much about the quantity of moves, but rather how they are accessed. He's over here playing Tekken while the others are playing Smash. It's the control scheme simply put.

are you complaining about a character playing uniquely or a character having a control scheme that includes more moves?

every single third-party character is using their source game as a baseline to feel unique. megaman is doing this. kazuya is doing this. sonic is doing this. all of them.
as for kazuya himself, you are overestimating how many input moves he even has. only EWGF, reflect,GF, command dash, and (if you want to count it) while rising punch on kazuya are command inputs. everything else is either crouch plus a direction or diagonal and a direction. it IS really simple.

I wish Sakurai had but ivy from soul Calibur in this game just to scare some people in this playerbase to death.

 

[the king of murder]

What does it mean to be a "badly designed" characters? I really feel like this term is used to describe characters that someone just simply dislikes without saying so, hiding in a false veil of objectivity by blaming their design.

Let me ask you again, what does it mean to be bad/good designed character? I have seen a lot of people in social media throw that term out for characters that discourages rushing in and rather promotes patience and being selective in their characters interactions. Then there are others who use it to describe characters that have overtuned and/or incomprehensible tools at their disposal.(DLC). Others say comeback mechanic is badly designed.

It is obvious that everyone has their own definition for that.

In my opinion how well designed someone is depends on how well all their moves function with each other and how much it represents their home series(yeah a non-competitive trait but considering Smashes theme, that is very important to me). I basically view the character in a vacuum instead of how they interact with other characters in a 1vs1 scenario to determine if they are good or badly designed.
This is 100% my opinion of course. Whether their tools are fun to watch, fight against or plain broken in competitive Smash is a different topic altogether for me. So in my opinion DLC characters are actually the best designed characters(for obvious reasons) and I kinda wish the the main roster would have that amount of care given to them as well.

My candidate for worst designed character is Ganondorf. Even with efforts to declone him he still retains most of his Cpt.Falcon moves. Giving somebody with bad mobility specs the moveset of a high mobility, combo character has to be the biggest sin in Smash about how badly you can **** up a character design. Simply making him stronger isn't gonna fix that. And we don't have to talk about how well he actually represents his character in the home series, lol.

 

[Wigglerman]

What does it mean to be a "badly designed" characters? I really feel like this term is used to describe characters that someone just simply dislikes without saying so, hiding in a false veil of objectivity by blaming their design.

Let me ask you again, what does it mean to be bad/good designed character? I have seen a lot of people in social media throw that term out for characters that discourages rushing in and rather promotes patience and being selective in their characters interactions. Then there are others who use it to describe characters that have overtuned and/or incomprehensible tools at their disposal.(DLC). Others say comeback mechanic is badly designed.

It is obvious that everyone has their own definition for that.

In my opinion how well designed someone is depends on how well all their moves function with each other and how much it represents their home series(yeah a non-competitive trait but considering Smashes theme, that is very important to me). I basically view the character in a vacuum instead of how they interact with other characters in a 1vs1 scenario to determine if they are good or badly designed.
This is 100% my opinion of course. Whether their tools are fun to watch, fight against or plain broken in competitive Smash is a different topic altogether for me. So in my opinion DLC characters are actually the best designed characters(for obvious reasons) and I kinda wish the the main roster would have that amount of care given to them as well.

My candidate for worst designed character is Ganondorf. Even with efforts to declone him he still retains most of his Cpt.Falcon moves. Giving somebody with bad mobility specs the moveset of a high mobility, combo character has to be the biggest sin in Smash about how badly you can **** up a character design. Simply making him stronger isn't gonna fix that. And we don't have to talk about how well he actually represents his character in the home series, lol.

For me I'd say a 'badly designed character' can apply to two major design choices.

1: Someone like Little Mac. The idea of making a super strong, ground focused fighter in a game that depends heavily on air interactions/movement while having a purposefully restrictive recovery option, just compounding the severe flaw in his design to begin with, is an example of a poorly designed character. While he shares similarities to Kazuya in some of his characteristics (Such as being ground focused), he doesn't gain the advantages of having a pretty solid set of recovery tools to ensure he can at least continue playing the game for a reasonable amount of time and is further exacerbated by Mac's terrible weight, jump heights and air mobility. Having incredible armor on his grounded Smashes isn't enough to save him. And his air attack kit is the absolute worst in the series history meaning he ACTUALLY can't play half the game while Kazuya can to a much greater degree, even if it isn't stellar.

Mac, like Kazuya is a 'port their playstyle' character that could be argued to be faithful but, unlike Kazuya, it didn't transition well at all. It didn't in Smash 4 nor get any better in Smash Ultimate. An example of a 'faithful' adaptation that, sadly, is not a good fit for how Smash works.

2: Someone like the sword sisters feel like the extreme end of the poor design spectrum where they are very over tuned and their weaknesses are few. They sort of get extra goodies just because that they didn't NEED but got anyway (Such as Foresight and having Switch Vr. 2.0 that makes PT's Switch seem terrible in comparison). A set of characters so GOOD they could elevate players in rank with minimal investment and, to some extent, still do. While counter play for them has become rampant DUE to their abundant use it doesn't mitigate the fact the character(s) are quite powerful and don't require nearly the level of skill to play effectively as a large portion of the roster. This isn't a 'hate on the sword sisters' take, just a simple look at their design. I was seeing similar escalations locally where players I'd normally have a strong match up against started wrecking me on the regular as soon as they started using the sisters and it took me months to properly adjust just to get the MU to even, let alone pulling ahead. The characters (And to some degree, MU knowledge needed to be accrued) were, and still are, that good. Their biggest weakness being their recovery but when they can control so much space with insane levels of safety that a huge portion of the roster either can't or absolutely struggles to deal with? I find that to be a design failure to some degree.

There's more examples in the roster who could be argued to be of poor design (Ganon is often a common and reasonable choice. Lucario was one I nearly dove into instead of Little Mac but honestly he's just as horribly designed, if not worse) that need overhauls.

 

[Sucumbio]

For me I'd say a 'badly designed character' can apply to two major design choices.

1: Someone like Little Mac. The idea of making a super strong, ground focused fighter in a game that depends heavily on air interactions/movement while having a purposefully restrictive recovery option, just compounding the severe flaw in his design to begin with, is an example of a poorly designed character. While he shares similarities to Kazuya in some of his characteristics (Such as being ground focused), he doesn't gain the advantages of having a pretty solid set of recovery tools to ensure he can at least continue playing the game for a reasonable amount of time and is further exacerbated by Mac's terrible weight, jump heights and air mobility. Having incredible armor on his grounded Smashes isn't enough to save him. And his air attack kit is the absolute worst in the series history meaning he ACTUALLY can't play half the game while Kazuya can to a much greater degree, even if it isn't stellar.

Mac, like Kazuya is a 'port their playstyle' character that could be argued to be faithful but, unlike Kazuya, it didn't transition well at all. It didn't in Smash 4 nor get any better in Smash Ultimate. An example of a 'faithful' adaptation that, sadly, is not a good fit for how Smash works.

2: Someone like the sword sisters feel like the extreme end of the poor design spectrum where they are very over tuned and their weaknesses are few. They sort of get extra goodies just because that they didn't NEED but got anyway (Such as Foresight and having Switch Vr. 2.0 that makes PT's Switch seem terrible in comparison). A set of characters so GOOD they could elevate players in rank with minimal investment and, to some extent, still do. While counter play for them has become rampant DUE to their abundant use it doesn't mitigate the fact the character(s) are quite powerful and don't require nearly the level of skill to play effectively as a large portion of the roster. This isn't a 'hate on the sword sisters' take, just a simple look at their design. I was seeing similar escalations locally where players I'd normally have a strong match up against started wrecking me on the regular as soon as they started using the sisters and it took me months to properly adjust just to get the MU to even, let alone pulling ahead. The characters (And to some degree, MU knowledge needed to be accrued) were, and still are, that good. Their biggest weakness being their recovery but when they can control so much space with insane levels of safety that a huge portion of the roster either can't or absolutely struggles to deal with? I find that to be a design failure to some degree.

There's more examples in the roster who could be argued to be of poor design (Ganon is often a common and reasonable choice. Lucario was one I nearly dove into instead of Little Mac but honestly he's just as horribly designed, if not worse) that need overhauls.

Actually would you mind explaining Lucario? I've always personally liked the character and his Brawl design was pretty cool but I haven't used him in Ultimate and this isn't a new take, that he's trash or whatever.

 

[Wigglerman]

Actually would you mind explaining Lucario? I've always personally liked the character and his Brawl design was pretty cool but I haven't used him in Ultimate and this isn't a new take, that he's trash or whatever.

Lucario basically boils down to: A character that is really, really bad and only gets 'good' once you've fallen far behind in a fight. This poor design was its most evident in Smash 4 where Lucario's gimmick, Aura, stacked WITH Rage (Way more than it does in Ultimate), making a Lucario in a compromised position capable of deleting stocks in one or two exchanges. His attacks feel to be designed to be pretty bad early on so it isn't even like he can say he's a solid character BEFORE Aura even becomes a factor.

Characters that are designed to become 'good' strictly because you're losing aren't something I can say I find interesting, rewarding or even a good idea. Other characters do have their gimmick Come Back Mechanic(tm) but Lucario's is literally baked into the character's design choices while someone like Terry doesn't inherently need GO! to be a solid character in his own right. Kazuya doesn't need Rage Drive to be able to deal damage, do combos or lock down a stock. Cloud doesn't need Limit to do any of these things either. Their gimmick is more privilege than required to be playable. Lucario doesn't have that luxury. He either gets Aura fully online and has to play out of their mind at a state where they can very well die in one stray hit just to get the 'full potential' Lucario allegedly offers.

I feel the character needs a major overhaul next game. A total rework of his kit to be less reliant on Aura in almost everything he does. Aura should make people weary and try to lock stocks early on so he can't make the most of it but it shouldn't be his entire identity like it is now. Live or die by Aura (or lack there of).

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Bad character design is something like old zelda/sheik or pokemon trainer, you would switch depending on the strenght of the character, but zelda didnt complement Sheik and pokemon trainer stamina mechanic and type weakness punished 2/3 of the character too much to make switching viable.

aegis being strong doesnt mean they are bad designed, infact a good aegis players know when to switch to pyra and mytra, so they are doing what they are designed to do.

I dont believe any character in this game is as badly as melee zelda, yes no even little Mac or ganondorf.

 

[Rizen]

Bad design for me means two things: reliant on RNG in a skill based game (Hero) and/or having overpowered aspects that eclipse the rest of the character like Brawl's DDD being a bad character except with a stupidly OP grab game. Hero could have been extremely toxic if he'd ended up being a top tier but fortunately he's not good enough to be prevalent in the meta. I think characters with 0 to deaths like Luigi should have been worked out to be stronger in some areas but not have polarizing OP mechanics. I'm generally against any true 0-deaths.

Not to be confused with over powered characters like aegis. IMO Aegis is fine except they should have had Sephiroth's extremely light weight to balance out them being so amazing. Several characters like Pika and Fox are balanced by being glass cannons. Aegis just needs more glass to their cannon. Steve imo will have counterplay developed. I think banning him (or anyone) is a knee jerk reaction when there are other top tiers doing just as well like Roy, Cloud, Aegis, Palu and ROB. That's not to say Steve isn't amazing but imo western players weren't ready for really good Steves from Japan in the Gimvatational. They go hit by a lot of anvils which are 20 frame start ups and probably didn't know the MU well enough. However fighter pass 2 isn't the best balanced DLC and I wouldn't say no to some character tweaking.

 

[The_Bookworm]

Lucario basically boils down to: A character that is really, really bad and only gets 'good' once you've fallen far behind in a fight. This poor design was its most evident in Smash 4 where Lucario's gimmick, Aura, stacked WITH Rage (Way more than it does in Ultimate), making a Lucario in a compromised position capable of deleting stocks in one or two exchanges. His attacks feel to be designed to be pretty bad early on so it isn't even like he can say he's a solid character BEFORE Aura even becomes a factor.

Characters that are designed to become 'good' strictly because you're losing aren't something I can say I find interesting, rewarding or even a good idea. Other characters do have their gimmick Come Back Mechanic(tm) but Lucario's is literally baked into the character's design choices while someone like Terry doesn't inherently need GO! to be a solid character in his own right. Kazuya doesn't need Rage Drive to be able to deal damage, do combos or lock down a stock. Cloud doesn't need Limit to do any of these things either. Their gimmick is more privilege than required to be playable. Lucario doesn't have that luxury. He either gets Aura fully online and has to play out of their mind at a state where they can very well die in one stray hit just to get the 'full potential' Lucario allegedly offers.

I feel the character needs a major overhaul next game. A total rework of his kit to be less reliant on Aura in almost everything he does. Aura should make people weary and try to lock stocks early on so he can't make the most of it but it shouldn't be his entire identity like it is now. Live or die by Aura (or lack there of).

To me, I think they kinda nailed the landing with Lucario in Brawl (at least as much as his design can handle).

In Brawl, he isn't nearly as diesel powerful at high aura like in the future games, but is still strong, while his low aura standing isn't as pathetically weak as it will be later. In other words, he isn't as nearly polarizing as in future Smash games, and Brawl Lucario is the overall most consistent version of the character.

For some reason, in SSB4 they decided to make low aura Lucario hit like a feather, but also make high aura Lucario hit like a rollercoaster at max speed. The only real explanation I can provide why they did this, is to make the character more inviting to play without outright buffing him since he was already high tier in Brawl. They then tried to go back to the Brawl direction going into Ultimate, but they did not commit hard enough, leading to his current messy state.

Either way, if your entire character design is tied completely around getting comebacks, then that is rather poor design.

Bad character design is something like old zelda/sheik or pokemon trainer, you would switch depending on the strenght of the character, but zelda didnt complement Sheik and pokemon trainer stamina mechanic and type weakness punished 2/3 of the character too much to make switching viable.

aegis being strong doesnt mean they are bad designed, infact a good aegis players know when to switch to pyra and mytra, so they are doing what they are designed to do.

I dont believe any character in this game is as badly as melee zelda, yes no even little Mac or ganondorf.

I agree with this, so much so that I want to add more to why Sheilda had such flawed design. Why? Cause I want to.

Essentially, the entire point of Zelda/Sheik's design is for Sheik is rack-up damage and Zelda to land finishing blows, according to the in-game description.
However, there are two major issues with this:

1) In Melee, Sheik had ZERO issues landing KOs. Fair was strong and can be comboed into easily. Bair especially in edgeguards was strong. Up air was strong. Down smash was very strong. She can combo into up smash. The list goes on. Aside from their humongous tier difference (top tier vs bottom tier), this completely defeats the whole purpose of their whole dynamic. In the end, Zelda in serious play is only used as a recovery bot and nothing more.
In Brawl, they try to fix this by heavily nerfing Sheik's KO power. Not only this knocks down Sheik's power level as she was very prominent in Melee (especially at around the time Brawl was released), but this also gives Zelda a greater purpose to their intended design. At first glance, this was a very nice step in the right direction, and part of why a Sheilda tier placement was even in the discussion.
However there are two major issues: one, due to Brawl's disc-based loading and Zelda/Sheik not being loaded at the same time, Transform took a very long time to complete, thus making it unsafe and unpractical to use. Two: Zelda was still bottom tier.
The second point wouldn't matter if the characters complemented eachother well. Pyra isn't that good of a character by herself, but she and Mythra compliment eachother so well that it doesn't matter in the end.

2) But that is issue, they don't. Zelda and Sheik's playstyles do not compliment eachother whatsoever. One is a defensive character that (tries) using set-ups and precise sweetspots, with low mobility and very questionable buttons. The other is a rushdown character with high mobility and frame data. Their attributes and movesets, outside of their Final Smash, has no similarities whatsoever.
The same applies with Trainer, but their moveset is much better crafted in a way to actually compliment eachother. Zelda and Sheik are simply two completely different characters that happens to be attached to eachother.
As such, unlike Trainer or Aegis, there is virtually no point ranking them together.
Aegis fixes this in numerous ways: one, their moveset and playstyle are actually crafted to compliment eachother. One is designed for racking up damage and other for KOs, but unlike Zelda, Pyra is not a defensive character that inherently clashes against the playstyle of your counterpart. Two, they are essentially semi-clones of eachother, possessing identical normals with different move properties and frame data, and their specials carry out a similar agenda despite being different. Combined with their seamless switching, it is much easier to use both at once in a fight in a functional way.


I think this is part of why Zelda's moveset is crafted the way it is: she is a defensive character that is designed to land KOs.
That is it.
Not only this is such an inherently flawed character design that works against itself, but this gives her such an inherently flawed moveset, to the point that she performs poorly in the one area she is supposed to be good at: being a defensive character.
Future efforts try to fix this: in PM, her Din's Fire has been reworked to be a trap/set-up tool, and in Ultimate, her Phantom has been heavily buffed to be a strong trap/set-up tool. Despite being a very notable improvement over Melee/Brawl Zelda and SSB4 Zelda, respectively, she falls into the same groaning pains her initial moveset has plagued her with.
Quite an unfortunate character if you think about it.

They were initially separated due to 3DS technical limitations. However, there is a reason why they never bothered combining them back together going into Ultimate.

 

[Sucumbio]

I get wrecked by good zeldas more than sheiks lol. I always fall for teleport. And her bair is palpable. Sheik at least you know what to respect. She's just fast as hell.

So in Ultimate besides Dorf Mac Lucario and Zelda who is better but still not great and .. hero is rng based so they'll theoretically never be op ? lol uh .. any other char?

I was thinking plant just now. It's a funny character but wtf. I guess he can be hard to adapt to at first but I don't use him and the ones I've played aren't unbeatable.

 

[Gearkeeper-8a]

Nah plant is fine maybe a bit underpowered, but he/she performs as a tanky trap character specially as a tanky ledge tramp character very well.

Just look at how Brood plays the character, he is solid.

Give side b more duration and size and faster start up and he becomes high tier.