Hey, it has been awhile! To those who have stuck around waiting for the next video, thank you for doing so. Competitive Smash 2023 video will be coming soon (well, in like a month or 2), so stay tuned!
I feel like the other issue is just how often any attempt at change is pushed back against by top players and immediately reverted because TOs are afraid people are gonna dodge their events in the future.
hate when this happens lmfaoo,, its why Regen is unbanning steve bc they want to try and get acola to come (even tho the majority of us were way happier with steve banned at last years regen) all because they wanna try and get top players to boost the events lumirank points
I like that this video wasn't crying over DLC characters or top tiers but actually just suggesting realistic ideas for change in the competitive scene. Great video.
I think its pretty obv that the common problem with the 3 analyzed characters is, that they have absolutely broken defensive options (good disengage/camping tools and super save approach-tools). That alone makes it so, that most of the time they can decide about the pacing of the match and the enemy can do nothing but w8 and play there game or get destroyed for playing offensively against these strong defensive-tools. And this situations often sucks for both the people playing against these chars and the viewers.
G&W not so much: the only two things he has that are actually obnoxious are the grounded up-B and u-smash having full invincibility. Without these, while retaining his strong options, he'd need to be way more careful as he couldn't afford anymore to be as inconsiderate. Sonic's huge problem is being a "melee zoner": fast and high mobility, relatively strong or wide hits, a couple moves are even safe on parry. Toning him down (aside from reworking his moveset to make it more appealing and less of a runny runny spinny spinny loop) in my opinion is fairly easy: less air speed and more gravity to make it more vunerable in the air, reverting back neutral special to the Smash 4 iteration so that people can actually have a proper window to react to it but improving its accuracy (why does it target opponents so high that can go over them?), fixing the safe on parry stuff and adding some more vulnerability for being too reckless by relying solely on his speed and fast frame data on a couple moves. Steve needs a major review because he plays a game on its own: there are too many things you can say about him that need to be addressed.
@@hexhiaa The issue is that only Sonic is able to do this in Ultimate: he literally moves BEFORE the player who parried even if that player should have advantage frames! And it's so wrong!
@@skeleton819 Well there's a difference between a good character and a broken character. G&W is "just" a good character that would need only a couple tweaks to make it more approachable, but beside that it's fine. Sonic is simply boring and annoying: he needs a revamp to make it actually fun and interesting to fight. As of now he's just a loose cannon that forces the player to play in a certain way without even granting a stable counterplay. Also to have SAFE ON PARRY moves is unfair., as the parry mechanic revolves around being able to attack the offender if you parried the incoming attack. Steve is just wrong as he literally plays a game on his own, with his own rules and tricks including game breaking ones, and a stupidly overpowered kit (just think that the WOODEN pickaxe f-air spike is almost on par with Mario's f-air spike. That's nuts!!). He would need a heavy rework.
I've been saying since day 1 that we should mix Hazard and No-Hazard stages. Switching ingame rulesets takes literally 5 seconds and allow more stages to shine with T&C, Smashville and even FoD having the moving platforms.
Stage variety? With a toggle that only takes a few seconds to change and can easily be reset within half a minute if the players somehow forget to switch the toggle? You're crazy
I think a rotating stage list (with potential limits from 8 to 6 total stages) would be super fun to see on top of hazards on/off. Ultimate is fortunate enough to have plenty of stage options that are not utilized due to alternatives and for the sake of simplicity. The biggest issue with a rotating stage list is that the underutilized stages can only be relegated to counterpicks which already make up a minority of the 8 in play (3/8 to be specific), and out of the stages not in that big 8, none really have a great argument for being swapped in as a starter should a rotating stage list be picked up. Still, anything to shake up the meta would be neat, it is up to the players & tournament holders to actually make any changes primarily.
Imagine if they allowed stage morph, squad strike, smash down, team battle, stamina mode, and fps meter into tournaments. Too bad most people don't like too change things up and keep on playing 1v1 flat stage.
Stage diversity would be huge. If you look at a game like rivals, a larger stage list is not only able to keep matches fresh, but it also makes counterpicks more powerful
I'm a ranked Rivals player. It's not like there is a huge stage choice but feels great to fight in each one of them and the stage variations are great! I praise to wolf Jesus we can keep Rivals 1 alive after 2 is deployed.
I think the way Ult changed Yoshi's Story to make it so much larger was a very bad move. It could have been a really interesting counterpick if they kept it the same size it was in Melee
@@CakeKid57What’s to lie about? The competitive scene is all about fighting with 2% of the stages and those range from 1 to 4 lines and zero items. That’s fun for you?
I'm not a competitive Smash player, but as a viewer, it always struck Me as odd that the Ultimate comp scene *doesn't* use the Omega/Battlefield stage settings, but the only legal stages are ones that closely resemble that layout? And then not even all the stages that do? Make it make sense. Meanwhile there are plenty of good stages that don't fit this normalized layout structure, even some asymmetrical stages too. I can understand hazards off, and no walk-offs, but like, there are so many good stages in Smash Ultimate it's crazy to Me that the tournament legal list is so tiny, even omitting stages that have been perfectly legal in scenes for previous Smash games.
@@EmperorPenguin1217 the reason they give is completely arbitrary and stupid too, like "oh it would just fill the same role as Final Destination" or something, when the lack of an underpass option is more than enough of a change imo
I'm not a competitive player, but I'll give my two cents. In addition to providing some cheap advertising with all their new stuff in "the only game where you can make Snake and Pikachu fight", Spirits are probably much easier to add as well. It likely involves adding a PNG and editing a JSON. Boom, new Spirit. Meanwhile, balance patching requires testing and they would probably rather have all hands on deck for their upcoming releases. I'm honestly surprised they're even adding sprits because I was certain that they had moved on from Smash Ultimate by now
NA ultimate is dying because of people complaining and the community tearing itself apart. The japanese scene is thriving and gets way better viewership because they arent babies and they just play the game. Thats all it is. Changing the ruleset wont change the community, which is the real source of the problem.
That’s pretty based I can’t argue to much with that. I never see Japan complain that much about acola because the country is familiar with how to fight Steve more than any other region in the world.
I have to say smaller american locals are also thriveing for the same reason. Southern North East Ohio has so many more locals popping up because we just play the game. We are by no means a big or good region we have 10 good players here and everyone else would get anything above a 5-2 at any real major without a lucky bracket and 30 who could get better than a 3-2 consistently but we just play in region and getting better and growing.
We should just do what Smogon does for Competitive pokemon singles... Send these 3 clowns to Ubers and have the standard metagame be A tier through low S. (I am mostly joking but it would be neat to have tournaments built for different power levels of characters. Imagine the standard meta being Cloud, Fox, Palu, Mario etc. But then have tournaments built for low tier characters like K rool, Piranha Plant and Dk and so forth.)
"Ever increasing threat" really downplays just how bad Bayonetta's case was. She didn't arrive an increasing threat, she was in and immediately was broken to the point of absolute disdain within the community for anyone who played her in tournaments. Fuck, I remember the Smash Ultimate Nintendo event where someone picked Bayonetta live on stage and got the crowd disgruntled with every single kill move.
This was a great video! I don't even play Ultimate, I play Melee, but it's sad to see Ultimate stagnating right now. I really hope people start experimenting with the ruleset.
I still think a Hazards On stage list would be healthier for the game! Say what you will about Brawl and Smash 4, but that Smashville platform was responsible for some seriously hype moments. Ultimate has more than enough stages to accommodate a shift to Hazards On, and it would be more fun as both a player and spectator.
I've noticed the community needs to change BECAUSE the meta needs to change. A lot of players have a love-hate relationship with this game. You can't force them into blind love. SSBU is close to being perfect, but it's held back by the current state of the game. It's very frustrating and disappointing for the people who can see its potential.
mfs will see the stats that steve, g&w, and sonic are the most represented characters at a top level and then say that people overreact on how common they are 😂
Smash players just line to whine about everything and don't want to put in the effort to do anything about it, unless it's the bare minimum like banning a character. It's no coincidence that Ultimate is the only game where multiple characters have either been talked about being banned or have actually been banned. If you have more than one character that has been banned at tourneys that's not a sign of the game being poorly balanced, just a community that would rather ban and complain over learning.
When it comes to stage lists, I think that having 3 bans and 8 stages total is toxic. It essentially almost gives the winning player an advantage. Proper counter picking, such as 6 stages and no bans + DSR in best of 5 and 1 ban in best of 3 could speed up games by giving characters more advantages on selected stgaes
I think an expanded, hazards on stage list would be great. You can't counterpick to a stage you've already won on, and, I think for something a bit more wild and experimental, make it so that a stage can't be played on more than twice for each set (no matter what).
Super interesting video, i TO'd a hazard on tournament in 2022, it went well, people arent that scared of change (it was a 60 slots tournament). I think removing stages like the two yoshis led to this metagame, PS2 is the most picked stage but not the most neutral, it's awfully large :s
I always feel bad playing g&w tbh. I’ve played him since melee and I love him so much and i get called a tier hog for playing him sometimes. I usually don’t play him anymore because of it but he’s still by far my favorite and best character.
Hey, play whoever you want, even if you’re not great at them! Heck, I main Corrin for Arceus’s sake, despite not being good with her. Play who you want
Here's the thing. Melee never died. It has enough skill expression and health to where Puff even leads into that. Brawl died. It was incredibly unhealthy and over centralized. Sm4sh died. It was incredibly unhealthy and over centralized.
They died because there was a new thing lol, Melee at the time of Brawl was its own thing and ppl never stopped playing it over the new game, something that happened to Brawl and later on, Smash 4. And arguably, it will happen to Ultimate. Melee at this point is a different game all together than most recent ones, just like Smash 64.
Nice video! I'm curious if the stats you released are public, it would be really interesting to analyze the variance in how long each character lives/kills.
Not currently. I would need to do a lot of cleaning up to make the spreadsheet readable lol. But I plan to release my spreadsheets with some other character stat stuff in a few months once everything is in order.
Why can’t people just play smash and not get pissed from people’s style of playing or mains? I personally see it like, dude, If you lose, you lose. If you win, you win. Don’t get all salty because “Oh no this character requires 0 skill!1!1!!!”. That’s apart of the game. If it works and is apart of the game, it’s free reign to do whatever you want with the characters and their moveset. All that matters is having fun, not how or why you lost or won. Just having fun.
@@hazyhayley7488you're telling me every single match you played went like that? It sounds to me you got wrecked by an online player in a similar fashion once or twice and now you're really salty about it and won't let it go The thing with you NA players is you always over exaggerate everything. Even when Mkleo was in his prime you guys were still moaning how broken joker was and how "the game is dead" when he was one of the small handful of joker mains that was getting huge results. Then Leo got surpassed and you guys are repeating the same shit you said before, it's getting old
@@nathandobbs7540 Every match against steve yeah. I like to approach and I’m tired of games devolving into them camping. Where’s the enjoyment if they’re constantly running away into overturned attacks? It gets boring playing so defensively and waiting for them to make a mistake when they have no reason to ever approach. No one wants to watch tweek doing nothing while acola mines just like how I don’t want to waste my time watching my opponent mine in a corner all game. This isn’t about skill, it’s about wanting this game to be competitive without it being boring to play. I’m tired of people not interacting.
Ban camping. If someone doesn’t interact for a full 1:30 minuet then they should be punished. By loss of stock Camping is one of the best ways to play the game especially for characters that have very good oos options. Or endless projectile usage.
Sometimes camping can be hard to define especially when both players aren’t interacting. If both players don’t interact it can be kinda hard to decide what to do. It also sucks to have your tourney run depend on TOs decision making
If Nintendo would add this to the next smash game we wouldn’t have to deal with timeouts: **The way the game functions now is that when timer runs out** 1. The screen fades and players are spawned again 2. They’re instantly at 300% 3. The blast zone gradually shrinks to a minimum over a time span of ca 15 seconds. **Here are the changes they could (should) make** 1. The game doesn’t end when timer runs out but a new “sudden death countdown” timer starts and the game continues seamlessly without fading the screen and respawning the players. This timer indicates how long it takes before the percents have reached 300 and blast zone is minimal. (NOTE: this happens regardless of how many stocks each player has left.) 2. The players’ percent doesn’t go to 300 directly but increases exponentially during the “sudden death countdown” timer until it reaches a maximum of 300. If one player has been moving away *slightly* more from their opponent during the game that player’s percent increases *slightly* faster. If they moved away *a lot* more form their opponent their percent increases *a lot* faster and in addition this the opponent’s percent is increased slower. 3. The blast zone shrinks gradually during the “zero death countdown” timer until it reaches a minimum. (Much like it does now although there’s no timer). 4. **The most important thing**: the amount of time on the “sudden death countdown” timer is customizable. **How to implement it** If we set the “sudden death countdown” timer to 15, casual games can remain more or less the same as they are today. In tournament, however, we could now start actually using sudden death, thanks to the percent increasing/blast zone shrinking exponentially and the possibility to make it happen over a longer time. Let’s say we keep the main timer on 7 minutes and set the “sudden death countdown” timer to 3 minutes. **Scenario A** A normal smash game where Tweek and Dabuz have been fighting patiently but neither of them was really camping. When the main timer runs out both are at last stock, Tweek is at 1% and Dabuz is at 99%. In this scenario we would probably not even notice the effects of the increasing percents or shrinking blast zone before Tweek manages to finish the game. **Scenario B** Light vs Sonix. Sonix has been omega camping the whole game. He has 2 stocks at 80% and Light is at 1 stock, 10% as the main timer runs out. Sonix now knows that he’s been running away from Light a lot and that his percents will go up a lot faster. He will not be incentivized to camp any further but to finish Light off before this happens. Light on the other hand could play normally and rest assured that the pressure is now on Sonix to actually engage. If Light plays patiently he will have a decent chance to catch up to Sonix and clutch the W. **Conclusion** We can never get rid of defensive play or down right camping. But with these new mechanics in play we would still have entertaining games since the timing out strat would often bite the camper in the ass in the end. Regarding games potentially getting three minutes longer and delaying tournaments I don’t think that would be a big concern because: 1. Not many games go to time anyway. 2. There will be less incentive to time out. 3. Even if the “sudden death countdown” timer is set to 3 minutes the exponentially increasing percents and shrinking blast zone would mean a lot of games would end within 1-2 minutes.
Given that they account for almost 1/4th of the matches it does seem worth doing, it could potentially cause a large shift in the stats. I could easily see a change of up to 5-10 on damage and same to timer.
@@eternal0star Exactly. I watched the video a day ago and dont remember the details, but sonic only having like 30 second longer games than average is less interesting than sonic's game time in comparison to the average excluding him.
THIS VIDEO IS CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED. SO MUCH EFFORT AND RESEARCH WENT INTO THIS, HOW DOES THIS ONLY HAVE 36k VEIWS AS OF NOW???? GO SHARE THIS WITH YOUR FELLOW SSBU NERDS RN. GET THIS MAN TO 100k AT LEAST. I HAVE ALMOST NEVER SEEN A VIDEO WITH AS MUCH EFFORT AS THIS ONE.
I am genuinely shocked how you have made a video this excellent and yet are a relatively small creator. Fantastic editing, script, pacing, audio quality etc. Keep up the phenomenal work, you’ll blow up in no time.
I have an idea for competitive items, the items don't spawn completely randomly on stage （they only spawn in certain areas) and it shows you where an item is going to spawn about 5 seconds before it actually spawns (it could also first it shows you possible spawn points, then it gets narrowed down). You know which pokemon are in each ball, the worst items like super-bombs and maximum M tomatoes are nerfed a bit. You know which item it is will spawn before it spawns as well.
Steve is the only real problem and the true gatekeeper in the game. G&W and Sonic have a clear ceiling and while Sonix will get better, so will others toward him. Steve has not even been used optimally yet and is already top 1. He's the only problem that breaks the chain of Circle OF MU choices...the "if you choose that character, I'll choose this character" and so on. 2/3 the cast cant play the game with Steve on the screen.
@@RealBroccoliHour It's clear because anything left with Sonic we could predict.... whether neat confirm or cancel. And we know how that would affect his MU's. Anything with Steve we absolutely cant because of the way he technically works. He's a wildcard.
It's absolutely insane to me how many options smash players have over other fighting games and smash games. SO many characters, so many stages. And they want to play 3 characters on the most boring stage picks.... I don't watch competitive Ultimate anymore because it becomes exhausting watching Sonic die to Steve blocks on minute 4 on Pokemon Stadium II or Town & City. Same shit over and over.
I never thought I’d say this to you, EasyFreezie, but thank you for your hard work to provide the smash community with accurate data. We really appreciate it, especially in this era of the game.
such a good video with so much put into it :3 i’m glad that the current meta is something i really like ngl but i wouldn’t really be against change at all, hazards on ruleset sounds so chill !
My thoughts: Stage changes are probably the best option for changing the meta. As well as what happened in melee which involved people optimizing characters to the point of dominating Puff. Something you forgot to mention along the way was the exploration of new formerly unused characters. Armada for a time used Young Link as a counter for Hungrybox and it worked for awhile. Smash Ultimate has so many characters in it, If you happen to main or co-main character(s) who just can't beat Steve, G&W, and Sonic then it's time to pick up a character just for them. To the point of counterpicks I think some characters in the roster have great MUs vs Steve, G&W, and Sonic but perhaps they are simply under used. A character like Palutena comes to mind. this character never stopped being good but was outpaced by DLC. Same could be said for characters like Wolf. We also might see more characters pick up fringe picks like Diddy, Pika, Pacman, or Shulk. It's also possible some mid-low tiers have hidden potential in one or two MUs vs the evil trio. All in all, exploring different MUs and new stages as well as dedicated optimization of characters might lead to major changes in the meta.
It's absolutely nonsensical how GnW gets lumped in with Sonic (built-in circle camping) and Steve (actual fort builder), despite being a hyper-aggressive glass cannon fundies character; the exact thing people supposedly like most. Everything that gets brought up about him also applies to numerous characters who get no flack, such as Lucina. Some characters that do drag things out by limiting interaction get a pass, like Bayo, Diddy, and Olimar. Short Sonic games =/= aggressive play. It means KO conditions were met rapidly. Aggression is relative to movement. If it takes 0.5 seconds to run full screen then taking 4 seconds to approach is not aggressive. The bar has to be set somewhere and if it's not proportionate to mobility then characters would get ruled out and ruled in simply because of their movement speed. With his mobility it doesn't take much to engage or disengage, and even the short games show players disengaging more than engaging, ergo not aggressive.
Saying G&W and fundies together is crazy. G&W players will literally throw out smash attacks in neutral, that’s like the polar opposite of fundies. He’s not as bad as Steve and Sonic, but G&W isn’t exactly an “honest” character.
This some main defending. Game and watch and yoshi are both in the same boat in boringness to watch even tho they are an agressive run up at you character
It's because of how simplified advantage state is for Game and Watch compared to other glass canons. As far as neutral goes he's fine, he has to work. But up-air juggles are the money maker and they're easy as pie. Completely non-committal, very hard to get out of and nothing happens if he's wrong. He can probably just go for it again and he's fine, because his frame data is _that_ good. His opponent isn't in a position where they can reverse him. If they ever are he can just up-b - no pressure. Except for very specific matchups, he should be getting 60% bare minimum- then, all he has to do is just cover options. Air dodges are auto-conditioned and down-smash covers both sides of him and buries. If your air drift isn't that good, say bye! It's just not very impressive. And whilst characters in the same category like Fox aren't all that difficult themselves, at least with him there's a greater emphasis on accuracy.
I respect the research, but I don't think the way you're describing the problem is correct. As long as it's cool gameplay, I couldn't care less if the game takes longer than average, or if the players are losing their stocks above 130. I could watch and enjoy a whole grand finals of MkLeo vs Tweek going to game 10 with all games taking 5mn if that's what it comes down to. But I could also watch a quick game of Steve vs Sonic and still think it's boring. With that in mind, I don't think the stagelist changes you're suggesting would really help that much. We'd just see less of the lame stuff but also less of the cool stuff... If players actually pick these stages, that is. Because yes, if ps2 and sbf are picked so often, it's just because they're the most loved ones overall, and not only by the campy players. I don't like the idea of forcing a cheesy stagelist just because it would supposedly make the game more exciting (for who?) Basically what happened with Yoshi's is that nobody liked playing on them anyways so there was no point in keeping them. The same would happen if you randomly decided to add Warioware, at best people are gonna gentleman to not picking it, at worst you'll have to waste 1 ban every time for a stage that's basically never gonna be played. And if you do that just to try to balance the game the way you want, well MAYBE you could make a stagelist that isn't great for Sonic, not even sure for Steve that guy should just be banned, we've seen how much better the lmm tournaments were... But anyways it's a game with 89 characters, you would also end up nerfing some of the low tiers for no reason, or accidentally buff ones that absolutely didn't need it (can't wait to see ROB killing at ridiculous % by just doing raw nair into side b; and do we really want to see Game&Watch getting consistent early kills?) I also think making decisions only based on the top 0.1% players' sets maybe isn't the best approach, considering that just 1 talented player can vastly shift how it goes, but also more importantly because these are important changes that will affect the remaining 99.9%. I don't see Sonic dominating that much in regional/local scenes or in the earlier parts of the bracket at majors...
Steve is in a tier of his own. He plays the exact same game as Sonic, but he's straight up better at non-interaction and every mix-up he successfully hits leads to a far greater amount of damage or even just a straight up kill compared to the 40-60% that Sonic gets (which is average for a top tier). I will never understand how people can think Sonic is close to him. They're just defeatists.
It's because Sonic's matchup spread is arguably better than Steve's. For Sonic, people widely agree that he only loses to Fox and Aegis. And I'd say that he also arguably loses to Corrin and Pac Man. And then there's Steve who people widely agree loses to Cloud, PT, and Sonic. And plenty of people will even say that he loses to Robin and Shulk, though there's a lack of top level matches showcasing those character's abilities in the matchup. Just because Steve is way easier to play than Sonic and has tons of moves that are low risk high reward doesn't mean that he's automatically in a tier of his own. I still think that difficulty does play some role in a character's spot in a tier list, but it isn't the only thing that needs to be considered. That being said, I'd still put Steve above Sonic because of the aforementioned skewed risk-reward he has going on, but he isn't so far above Sonic to where I think believing that the 2 are in the same tier is a completely valid take.
@drakejoshofficialyoutubech5569 It honestly doesn't matter if Sonic has a better matchup spread. I know he doesn't, but still. He's just a worse character with worse tools. Everything he does Steve does better. Even in the matchups that Sonic wins, counter-play exists. believe it or not, Sonic is actually a pretty balanced no. 2, or no. 3 or wherever you have him. But against Steve if you can't stop him from executing his gameplan, it's immediately just a bad matchup. And none of the characters you named can do that asides from Cloud (arguably).
When I heard that people believed Robin beat Steve I stopped listening. Pokemon Trainer too. It's absolutely ridiculous. Rizeasu had to switch to Byleth to make a dent on Acola. The thing about "matchup!" folks is that they don't understand that their ideas aren't always based in reality.
Please, dear god PS2 IS NOT A STARTER!! That stage is campy as hell and ppl never die. The blastzones horizontally are just as big as KALOS. Make PS2 a counter pick PLEASE
I know why smash is dying, the matchmaking is one part of it, there's no way for casual players to play casually nor competives to play solely competitive, there's just quick play, and both player types get stuck together and dont usually have fun.
Game won't change as there are no patches anymore. The game was built for timeouts and camping. Hate it then kill it faster. Smash 7 will come out and people will move on day one. Hopefully it has no balloonknockback, increased universal hitstun and actual movement options outside of walk run and jump and they make approaching easier and safer as well as bring back crossups. Game needs to rreward players for getting in and also punish players for spacing badly and constantly playing it safe.
One of the easiest to implement and obvious quality of life options would have been the ability to toggle hazards on/off from stage select. Ruleset could be “Hazards On / Hazards Off / Selection” When “selection” is the ruleset being used when are hovering over a stage you can press a button to toggle hazards on/off like you can change to omega/battlefield mode That would drastically improve both casual smash and competitive smash. With competitive smash it expands the stage options because then there would be the option for City & Town (Hazards on) or City & Town (Hazards off) as their own stages. Could potentially add a reason to allow Dream Land (the tree) as a hazards only stage. Experiment with Pokemon Stadium 1 (Hazards On) as an option given how long PS1 was played in melee should be attempted. You could still have Ps2 no hazards. It would also encourage experimentation in the area of “stage tech”. Beyond platform ladders & knowing blast zones there isn’t that much to learn. Ppl could discover stage specific slant tech. Imagine how cool it would be to have ppl figure out the approximate times that dreamland tree blows and using that to extend a combo or edge guard. Hazards on would be cool, hazards selectable would be amazing. Sadly having to go back to rule select to switch to hazards on/off during each stage select is way too much time (really slows down tournaments) and too many potential chances for failure points causing matches to have to restart.
I would like to see Warioware, Yggdrasil, Castle Siege added to the stage list. I think those add a good amount of variety that's not present at the moment
Good research and suggestions. The most important thing is not actually the numbers--it's whether players and fans ENJOY watching/playing the game. Therefore, whatever rule changes are made they should support THAT purpose (i.e. it's less about whether something is "fair" or "broken" and more about what people enjoy. Great example is Fox in Melee. Is he broken? Yes. But is he banned? No, because people enjoy playing against him even though he's broken). Experimenting with rulesets is a great idea. However, even if we came up with amazing new rules, some characters' movesets are too broken to fix with rules (e.g. Steve, Sonic), and should simply be outright banned. That being said, maybe we could introduce the concept of *character* counterpicks. That is, a list of characters you are ONLY allowed to select if you lost the previous match.
Also, Fox isn't THAT FAR OFF the rest. A better example is Brawl Meta Knight, who is not banned because it's considered the only fun character to play in Brawl for many.
I think there's one simple thing that could possibly make the game more entertaining to watch, and it's not even that hard. Have you SEEN competitive Marvel VS Capcom 2? There might as well be 5 characters in that game, because the top tiers are so good that they basically render every other, potentially usable character useless thanks to the fact that they have weaknesses. The problem is that the top tiers play an entirely separate game from the cast. Banning the top 4 would practically create an entirely new game. And for some people, they like being the overpowered character. Some people saw this in the Xbox 360 days and created a separate, new ruleset. Low tier tournaments. Despite it's name, it mostly only bothers to ban the top tiers, and sometimes limiting the power of other characters like Captain Commando (Who gets his power from one of his assists, which is banned). This does a lot for the game. Because the characters who cause the most damage to the meta are banned, the idea of a "good character" opens up a lot more, since there isn't one guy who is just straight up better than everyone else in every possible way, and since it's just only one ruleset, the fun of fighting the actual top tiers isn't lost at high level play. Plus, we still get to feel hyped whenever someone picks a bad character to show off, because there's nothing stopping you from expressing your freedom in a "real" tournament. So why don't people do this for Ultimate? Think about it. I see most people complain that Steve plays a different game from the rest of the cast, so he should be banned. But if we banned him, we lose players because we don't get the same game. No other Smash character can build, and we lose out on all of the tech that people practiced and put effort into learning. This is exactly why Meta Knight was never banned in Brawl. Even though he is WAY more extreme than Steve, he still was never banned because top level players refused to play without him. Or banning Sonic? I used to see a Ult player who played a rushdown-type Sonic, and people thought he was cool. I want to see someone go to a tournament like this. Kazuya? That character demands execution at a top level (I know I just uploaded a video implying that you can do a very easy "infinite" by spamming D-smash, but that would never work in a tournament). You remove the skill expression of picking a "hard character" if you ban him. By creating low tier tournaments, top level players won't complain while spectators can rejoice that they get to see more than two characters in the game. This isn't a perfect solution, but it's braindead easy, and yet nobody has even bothered trying???????????????????
I would say legalize mementos, castle siege, Lylat, and yoshi’s island, warioware is a hell no because of the small blast zones, and hazards on/off should be differed on whether it’s a starter or counterpick, with hazards turned on for counterpicks
I find it funny how before ultimate G&W was consistanly shit in every iteration of smash he's been in, but when he does get to be good now everyone hates on him
this is a weird question to ask. if someone feels like it needs to change, the only way it's going to change is if they put in the work. that's how melee has been for the past 20 years.
I think one thing to point out, is that mid-level play is far more commonplace. I'm not going to tell you that all of your research was for naught, gmw and steve function entirely differently at a mid level though. My training buddy is a gmw (now cyling in joker, and commonly cycles in random), and all he does is crouch near ledge as his form of neutral. I don't play him often enough to adapt, (though I do go to tournaments now and again), so being in my situation, fighting against him is hell. Even though I can completely beat any other gmw I've come across in or outside of tournament, the fact that a playstyle like his is incentivized, isn't fun and almost discredits the game, in my eyes. I'm not saying gmw should be banned because I suck, but I'm sure plenty of other players have bracket demons or friend demons who suck shit to fight against. If you want to find out where the quantity screaming against steve and gmw is coming from, it's probably coming from people around my position, people who love the game, but hate how the systems in place suck to get better at smash (elite smash for learning mus). I don't bitch an incredible amount, since I don't have twitter or anything, but plenty of others do in my place.
Frigate Orpheon (no hazard) would be a good stage honestly. It's small and the asymetrical aspect of it (platform on the left, not on the right) is counter balanced by the right half moving up and down. One issue with the stage list is that they're all too similar. For example, PS2 and SBF are almost identical... it's boring. And speaking of boring, most players have had no need to develop a certain aspect of the game: items. Even though items spawn randomly, they can in fact be played competitively... some of them, at least. We could have one type of item spawn each match, like the drill, the beast ball or the killing edge. The first 2, WhyDo has made a video playing them (Item Breakers) and honestly, they're so sick and take so much skill to use! And unlike pokeballs, you can play around them too. The beast ball can be caught with a well-timed airdodge or attack, for instance. I can understand shying away from change. Why risk breaking what isn't broken? But with interest in the game waning, there needs to be some sort of change to make games more entertaining. Give spectators a spectacle while, of course, remaining skill-based and not junky or cheesy.
Its always funny seeing smash community making a big deal out of nothing. People just need to get better and grind , a game won't die as long as there are people playing it
Incredibly impressive video and editing for such a small channel! If only Smash Ultimate continued to get regular patch updates to forcefully shift the meta.. Would just make the scene way more interesting.
I like the last bit. I don't know enough to say whether Ultimate needs change but it's ostensibly going to be around for a long time so why not try some things sooner rather than later.
