Anti-camping/passive play mechanic#853

Reasoning: complaints of passive, noncommittal playstyles being very strong and exceedingly frustrating to fight against. As well as, aerial strength and spam being a big complaint, with whiff lag being tested internally and found not to have fit well with the game.

Full anti-camping mechanic proposal. Pretend this is a yt short lol:

In order to promote interactive gameplay, whiff lag will be introduced as a debuff. Here’s how it works: if there is no melee attacks exchanged against each other or on shield after 5 seconds, the players develop more endlag on whiff to their aerials (tilts are up for discussion).

After an attack to an opponent occurs, they have 5 seconds after the opponent is out of hitstun and lands back on stage, to attack or be attacked before they develop whiff lag. Shielding an attack does not count as an interaction that resets your timer. Parrying attacks and projectiles reset the timer. Hitting an enemy with a projectile does not reset your timer, but for the defensive opponent, getting hit does.

Grabbing the ledge starts the timer for you, but stops the whifflag timer for your opponent. Refreshing the ledge or haxdashing 3 times automatically places you in whifflag. So no camping the ledge.

When a character dies, the whifflag timer is reset and does not start back up until invincibility is gone.

UI: could be demarcated by sparkles/slash effects similar to DI in ultimate. Or by blue down arrows while active

Pros:
-punishes uninteractive gameplay
-while whifflag implemented like in r1 would not necessarily reduce camping, implementing it as a nerf would
-would make people who are annoyed at this playstyle happy/less frustrated
-would (maybe) make r1 people happy/intrigued, as it’s something familiar
-Is entirely your fault if you develop whifflag, as the timer is not so short that it can accidentally happen or that someone (fors) can dash attack and camp till you get whifflag as an effective strategy (I think)
-would create moments of more methodical neutral, especially if both have whiff lag
-probably wouldn’t come into play that often, even if players aren’t trying to prevent it
-camping with projectiles makes you the only one to get whifflag

Cons/hypothetical annoying scenarios:
-would require a tutorial
-is another more abstract mechanic similar to the DI on repeat hits mechanic
-one player be more concerned about whifflag than the other, causing them to play more aggressively to prevent it while the opponent purposely plays passively to bait them in trying to prevent it (maybe?)
-most scenarios (someone deciding to camp) will probably lead to both getting whifflag at the same time. If someone decides to play passive and doesn’t care about whifflag, it could potentially make some people say “bruh, here we go again this guy forcing me into whifflag”. However, as it is mainly the faster characters with the more oppressive frame data who plays passively, they are arguably nerfed harder with the addition of whifflag. As they go from difficult to intercept-> interceptable, while others go from interceptable-> more interceptsble. Similar to the argument for ledge hog: makes uncontrsteble recoveries contactable and trash recoveries just more trash, but hey, you were gonna beat my trash recovery anyway, but now i can actually contest the perfect recovery. Ex: Slade can’t spam fair like clairen can cause he’ll get punished. If both have whifflag, Slade still will get punished, but now clairen will too

-Only scenarios where only one will get whifflag while the other will have close to 5 seconds it is if you ledge refresh 3 times, camping the ledge, uncontested shield pressure, or the degenerate way: hitting someone’s shield then running anyway
-in the above scenarios (rarely will happen), they may stop approaching so the other player gets whifflag too to even the odds. May lead to rare (hopefully) scenarios where passive play occurs where there normally wouldn’t have

Potential changes:
-shielding pauses whifflag timer, would make pressuring shield then running less effective (if it even is)
-shielding attacks resets your timer. ENSURES that the only scenario where both don’t get whifflag at the same time is someone camping the ledge, making any of the above annoying scenarios even rarer
-timer lasts anywhere between 4-7 seconds
-lag on tilts

I don’t know if this method would work. From my experience the camping player doesn’t really whiff, they’re just waiting for ME to whiff to punish. This really needs to be addressed though. I just played against a ranno as wrastor and they just refused to engage. Just dashed danced and ran away until I whiffed an approached then I get punished hard cause ranno is WAY faster. Different discussion but why is the jab combo so beatable in this game? It helps to have a fast option when you do catch one of these campers.

@FaintDiscovery264 those are good points, what do you think about this:

1. if you have whifflag, you will naturally be more careful with the attacks you throw out. Although the window to punish will be easier for the ranno, you might end up throwing out less attacks, which is honestly what you should do against those with a whiff heavy playstyle. The last thing they want you to do is play more methodically. They are also easier to punish in case they mess up. Clairen has traditionally been able to mash on you and dive whenever she wants, and it’s hard to whiff punish her, but with whifflag that playstyle is more risky.

2. If that still won’t be enough, maybe the mechanic could get reworked?Maybe, the defender gets a longer cooldown on whifflag. Meaning, let’s say you’re ranno and I’m kragg. We are both in whifflag. You dashdance and run away and whiff punish me with dash attack. After I hit the ground, timer starts. You have 10 seconds till whifflag returns, meanwhile I have 5. the ranno will be incentivized to hurry up and try to get another hit in before they are the only one in whifflag. Worst case scenario tho: the ranno decides to just camp for 10 seconds instead so both have whifflag

However, let’s say that kragg hits the ranno, and now kragg has 5 seconds and ranno has 10. The ranno may not interact in those 5 seconds like he normally does, but in those last 5 seconds, where the kragg has whifflag, the ranno again is incentivized to approach in those last 5 seconds as they have an advantage.