More complaints and suggestions#1139

Is there a reason Olympia’s entire set of normals are safe on shield? She doesn’t seem like… lacking in other departments. What’s up with that? This is a problem across the whole cast, but Olympia is especially egregious.

Loxodont’s ledge game is perpetually in a bad state from a balance perspective. Suggestion: remove ledge intangibility on regrabs after getting parried so he can’t just drop and regrab for free.

I’m aware the intended purpose of making dodge moves gain intangibility at different frames is for balance purposes, but it feels extremely bad to do a dodge and get clipped in the startup. They shouldn’t be intangible right at the start, obviously, but giving them a consistent frame of action would help.

Characters’ viability seems directly linked to two things: grab game and tech/getup chasing ability. If a character can’t do these things or can’t do them consistently, they’re bad, and if they can, they’re good. Both are largely due to the huge presence of floorhug, making so much of this game revolve around these interactions, which are very much unenjoyable for at least one side of them.

Parry beginning on a different frame for attacks and projectiles is nonsensical and should be standardized. This makes no sense and it feels incredibly bad.

Heavy characters being given lenient vertical physics values that allow them to zip up and down is effective proof for why other games in this genre were right to not do that. Aside from the balance side of the discussion, which could merit its own bullet point from Kragg threatening full hop fair at all times and juggling with repeated up airs, it just looks visually wrong to see big bodies jumping around like Pichu.

The A+B button input is an unmitigated disaster (which should have been obvious from the get-go) and, from a programming perspective, more trouble than it’s worth. We are not all constrained by the button limitations of the GameCube controller. Having a spare button sitting there useless while there’s an unnecessarily complex and easy to fumble input that could be bound to it is maddening.

Your game is primarily played online. Online is not a good environment for things like unreactable bursts. Your game is designed around unreactable bursts and other incredibly fast options that are negatively affected by rollback and delay. These problems exist even on good connections regardless of claims that they don’t. Considering the majority of your playerbase is stuck like this, designing around the online experience so it’s not miserable for them seems like a good move. For existing characters, this is clearly a sunk cost, but new characters and adjustments made to old ones can take it into account.

I don’t know what’s changed recently, but all I’ve encountered on ranked lately is Ranno (I took a tally, he’s by far in first place, followed by the heavies, and then everyone else far below), and they’re all insanely good regardless of elo. In fact, some of the diamond ranks aren’t as good as the platinums. Is there something that’s changed? Did he get shadow buffed? Did I miss out on the “let’s all smurf as Ranno” memo?

Absa’s down strong outclasses entire characters. This move does everything and can be near-guaranteed out of down throw regardless of DI, tech, etc. Between the easy confirms into it, the power, and the automatic DI mix, it gives her a tool to win close engagements for free. Absa has enough great tools as it is, I don’t think she needs a move that’s this overcentralizing to her ground game, especially since her archetype demands struggling up close.

The matchmaking filtering has ceased to work. I have my regions about as open as I can, and I’m still routinely getting matched with people 200+ elo above me. This worked for a bit, but I suppose one of the undocumented shadow patches must have broken it again.

The game continues to be pushed in the “press more buttons faster = win” direction. There is no way to escape this to some degree, but explicitly designing in this direction is disheartening.

Unranked is the same as ranked in terms of matchmaking. The anticipation was that less pressure would mean less frustration, but that’s not the case. The same irritations creep into every match, even the ones with no “stakes,” meaning unranked is just as unfun as ranked.

Summarily, I’m disappointed with the state of the game. I have given it so much time and effort, I’ve tried incredibly hard to engage with the mechanics, the metagame, and the aspects of the game outside of the matches, and at every turn I’m disappointed. The most fun I have with the game is the movement in training mode between matches. Everything else about it disappoints me. Unless there are meaningful changes in the next patch, I’ll be taking a leaf from all of my friends’ books and uninstalling for good.

Yeah, i could write my own 10 paragraphs worth of frustration about all the obvious flaws in design this game is plagued with. And its not about saying the game is horrible, its mainly so frustrating to see a game that does so many things right but then fails miserably close to the finish line because of some completely stubborn and trash design decisions almost noone likes.
I am also in the same boat, where all my friends make fun of my because i am still playing the game while they all moved along such a long time ago for the same reasons that existed back then and still do to this day.

I just wonder: how much lower do the player numbers need to get before they correct course? or are they hell bound on sinking this ship no matter what?

Im just pitching in my +1 to “most of my friends stopped playing due to some of these issues”