-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
I don't want new characters for Smash Ultimate anymore
- Thread starter Blackquill
- Start date
Why stop there? May they keep adding characters until the end of time!
If the 4th Link was "Midna & Wolf Link" as one fighter, that would be one of the hypest character additions.
R.O.B. and Snake are not considered to be "big body" heavyweights like King Dedede and K. Rool are. Their archetype is "stage-control zoning", similar to characters like Banjo & Kazooie or Duck Hunt.
And besides that, they're still relatively fast characters. Their frame data is ridiculous.
And Bowser is not slow in the air at all. He's 19th in terms of airspeed and actually has two decent divekick-like moves with d-air and Bowser Bomb (which can snap the ledge), making it risky to keep him directly above you.
I have found a lot of Ultimate's characters to not be all that appealing to me, which is a shame. I never cared about Ridley or K. Rool, etc. so I was happy for friends that wanted them but it was unfortunate to have additions like them when we got a lower amount of new characters this time around. I always loved both characters I cared about and the weirder random picks, so the more "pandering" choices felt boring. Part of the fun of Smash has always been the Dojo, the announcements, and so on, so less of them made it a bit less exciting even beyond the gameplay. Similarly the DLC has been mixed for me, though admittedly it does not help that I've played extremely little of the new characters due to not getting friends together for it as much lately.
So 6 new characters is 6 more shots to have an actually appealing character, and I'm happy to have that. The ride of expectations never ends. That being said... yeah, I'd also have been interested in some more solo stuff, since that'd get me playing it more.
And frankly, yes, let that man have a vacation.
So 6 new characters is 6 more shots to have an actually appealing character, and I'm happy to have that. The ride of expectations never ends. That being said... yeah, I'd also have been interested in some more solo stuff, since that'd get me playing it more.
And frankly, yes, let that man have a vacation.
They have! Considering the amount of characters, I'd say they've done a great job. And I do think a lot of character balance issues people bring up are very negligible and a matter of unrealistic expectations. With rosters this large, you would and should expect a train wreck in terms of balance, and it's far from it.
(Though I also came to the realization that having too many good characters brings its own share of 'game health' problems, but that's purely from a competitive standpoint. And when I say they should focus on making characters fun to play against, I don't mean it in a 'they're too good/bad' way.)
I'm talking about the stuff OP mentioned:
- Higher Input lag than Smash 4 (probably not noticable/relevant for 95-99% of players and too much of work to reduce it maybe so I'm not expecting that, even though it is very disappointing)
- Weird buffer things
- C stick issues (worst offender)
Then there's other stuff worth thinking about, like adding to some movement options in the game by simply widening the dash dance window for example. It's easy changes like this that could have a big impact on how fun or unfun many match ups feel like. But I try to focus on the glarring aspects that the dev team can't not know about.
And sure, I'd take an online overhaul as well, but I think that's even less likely than reducing the input lag, so I try to not even really hope for it.
Still, with the online being as bad as it is, it does contribute to the thought that they're working on the least necessary things at this point. The things that sell the most, obviously, so I'm not saying it's foolish of them to make more characters. It's just not going to add to the quality of the game in the most meaningful way at all.
I'm inclining to agree. We'll be getting so many new characters with almost nothing to do with them (besides pvp). A little bit of non-character content between characters would be nice.
glad to see ppl in here hand waving needed patch fixes instead of new chars because only one "makes money" lmao
Some good points made here, but c'mon you gotta love the spectacle, anticipation, and excitement of who the next character will be. I do believe both can be done though mainly the online. I think they'll be released between the new characters throughout the year.
I mean, it depends on what you're trying to say. "I don't like the way X plays" isn't exactly a needed patch fix.
The only thing Ultimate's in "need of" patch wise is the online, and that has basically everything to with Nintendo's non-existent online infrastructure, and until that changes, Smash won't really have good online.
What else would even be "needed"?
It seems the bulk of the player base primarily uses Smash as a party game. Nintendo will continually add spirits but I don't see why they would treat the single player portion of Smash as a GaaS.
They're separate problems. Basically, there's going to need to be a team of people on hand that can solve hot issues as they arise. That's one set of poeple that needs to be on the payroll. However, in terms of creating new, additional content for sales this is not salable content. Like if I'm trying to justify the need for X number of programmers on the payroll that are going to create new content that can generate revenue, some things can be sold for an additional fee and some things can't. Online features are going to have to be done for free. And while those can potentially see a return on investment in the form of new sales of the base game, they absolutely can not be sold as DLC. Given that this game is over a year old at this point and has sold gangbusters, I don't know if you're going to convince the publisher to hire a bunch of networking gurus to improve the online modes without the promise of additional revenue.
You know what does absolutely generate additional revenue? DLC like new fighters. That's all people are saying. I'm not saying they shouldn't ever fix anything. I'm not a Nintendo shareholder. I don't personally care about what's most profitable. I'm also just someone who understands how reality works and gets that robust online features are probably not high on the list right now given that the game has already been out for over a year and is arguably the best selling fighting game of all time. If I'm a Nintendo accountant and not a video game fan that wants better online gameplay it's hard to argue that an investment in this stage of the game will yield dividends in base game sales.
- Killer Instinct did it each time a new Season started, giving old characters new moves and rebalancing everything
- Street Fighter V did it with the new Seasons as well, although not as extensively for some characters depending on the Season
- Season 2, Season 3 & Champion Edition were pretty extensive (and the added V-Skill/V-Trigger is a lot of retools for existing characters)
- Soul Calibur VI just did it with Season 2
- Tekken 7 did something similar with Season 2 & Season 3
- Mortal Kombat X did it with XL in the free patch
- If you count 'expansions' then you have things like Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 and Guilty Geatr Xrd.
For games that have post-launch support it's actually pretty common that when you start a new season you balance change the whole cast and the system mechanics on top of adding new characters, and more than a few games added new moves or made notable changes to existing moves so they get used differently.
The game sold what 15 million copies? They don't need fucking dlc money to get some patches.
that's just regular balance patching, not completely retooling and changing a character on a fundamental level like you suggested.
Most businesses run on new expenses means we need more income.
Thats how businesses make money.
I think in general people talk past each other and nobody is on the same page. It's possible that the team recognizes that some balance patches could help keep a community alive. But way, waaaaaaay more important to that is promotional stuff like new characters. Like, competitive balance patch version 6.1.2 before the release of Byleth is going to garner way less attention than a balance patch included in 7.0.0 that is released alongside Byleth. The game could be in need of patches for bug fixes/balancing, but at this stage in the game that absolutely is not going to drive sales. Furthermore, Smash is notorious for not prioritizing competitive community desires. If you think the wants/desires of the competitive Smash scene are going to drive the direction of the game going forward then you have not been paying attention.
Changing Frame Data, Hitbox, Hurtbox, Damage values or Pushback is just regular patching and doesn't fundamentally change how a character plays.
Adding new moves and/or changing move properties does. If you don't think so then we just have different definitions. Regardless when it comes to post-launch gameplay related changes to existing characters, Smash falls short of other Fighting Games when you take into consideration how much extra content they put out.
