Critique of "The Competitive Failings of Smash Ultimate"

[@aidanflynn2037]

I love how ESAM sets his training CPU to Peach specifically.

[@mintyfresh122]

Yeah haha for Samsora

[@peep9636]

Aidan Flynn lmao exactly

[@peep9636]

Mint Fresh not just for Sam it cause of the match up he was losing to some lower level peaches

[@XylessBrawl]

Peach is also one of the better CPUs.

[@janusai]

What is the problem with esam and samsora? I live in a cave XD

[@NocturnalFudj]

Was a lot of fun hearing your perspective ESAM, and I super appreciate how gracious you've been about this whole thing with asking for permission and giving me a heads up so I could be in chat to discuss our perspectives! :) I know a lot of people disagree with a lot of what I say in the video and I totally understand that, because past the Control section of the video it stops being "facts" and starts becoming opinions, opinions that I can only try to justify with facts. I love talking about game design in general so I'm genuinely happy to discuss my stance on things with anyone! (provided they leave any passive aggression or toxicity at the door.) Hit me up in a reply to this or (preferably) on the pinned comment of the main video and I'll try and get around to replying to it and we'll talk! I don't hate Smash Ultimate, I just think it can be better and more than anything I wanted to try and open up a genuine, earnest dialogue around our grievances with the game and so I think responses like this are a good sign that it's worked, regardless of our differences of opinion! :) (P.S. to anyone calling me "biased", yes, I am biased. The basis of the video is that I'm trying to make a specific argument in favour of/or against something. That's what bias is, lmao.) (Still a Smash fan tho! I still enjoy watching the game at majors! Personally just to a lesser extent than previous games.)

[@Angelofdeath_OwO]

I don't know why People hating on you. You made a great video

[@emceehawaii7542]

Esam should pin this

[@NocturnalFudj]

It's just the Internet ain't it, doesn't matter how much you try and cover your bases or what lengths you go to to be fair and even-handed, people are gonna hate. It's fine! Lots of people have also been super polite and respectful too and the video's gotten me a lot of positive attention so I'm not gonna focus on the negativity too much ahaha

[@ronski4059]

Hey Fudji, I watched your video right when it was released and sent it to several of my friends. I thought it was a great video, and I agreed with most of it. I felt like Smash 4 seemed to reward skill better than Ultimate (minus rage and broken top tiers). Whenever I played vs a bad player in Smash 4, I felt like I could completely shut them down and knew everything they were going to do. I don't feel like this game rewards better players as much, and the two rams analogy is perfect for neutral feels like to me sometimes. I feel like if you could combine some of my favorite parts of Smash 4 and Ultimate, this would be the perfect fighting game. I just wanted to tell you that I enjoyed the video and to ignore the hate you've received.

[@NocturnalFudj]

Thanks a ton! I super appreciate the support :)

[@russellmidgley8465]

Esam: No one labs like I do Mew2King: Hey

[@MrMisfortune]

Seriously M2K wrote the book on Melees Frame Data before anyone ever put it on a website

[@russellmidgley8465]

@Random Person He's still ranked 10 on the 2019 PGR, and even if he isn't the best right now there is no denying the sheer amount of labbing he did for Melee

[@OGSumo]

Random Person Isaac Newton has really been down on his game for a long while now, with him being dead and all. I guess what he did deserves no respect or credit too right?

[@Antiple]

Random Person Oh thought you were talking about good smash games

[@takuchinowona9554]

@@Antiple Melee is good, but its also jankiest smash

[@moddedpan4252]

I'm really glad to see how maturely this is all being handled. I found fudj's critique of ultimate to be very well thought out and brought up many good points about the game's mechanics, and I'm glad Esam challenged the critiques in a civil and mature manner. Mad respect to both ends, I like these vids a lot

[@ArylBarrel]

Same.

[@thereaIitsybitsyspider]

That first critique could be fixed if they simply made one of the TWO jump buttons a short hop button.

[@Eman02kG]

Theitsybitsyspider that’s exactly what I was thinking

[@SlunkyBoi]

Or just have an option to turn it off, but default to on, like tap jump.

[@masierity2917]

Theitsybitsyspider or give an OPTION

[@cyberwolfmc9536]

Have the option to bind a button to short hop

[@ketz_165]

Rivals has that and I love it

[@jobles6590]

Fudj: The meta isn't diverse enough, we keep seeing the same characters. Esam: This isn't correct, every top 8 has had all different characters. The meta has been super diverse. Fudj: Bury mechanics that make you mash suck. Esam: SHIT YOU RIGHT

[@MrMisfortune]

Fudj: the online is ass Esam: .......... YES COME TO PAPA

[@HeroMystic]

I don't think there is a single top player in Ultimate that likes the bury mechanic. Even the ones that exploit it.

[@laggalot1012]

@@HeroMystic I don't feel like it's liked much at any level of play.

[@0815Snickersboy]

Every second online opponent is joker, Pikachu, Ness or zss I think there is some truth to this

[@HeroMystic]

@@0815Snickersboy People like playing good characters. Though Wi-Fi is very different. Zelda, Samus, DK, Bowser, and Link are significantly more prevalent.

[@FlawedBread]

I like this. Using your last platform to at least discuss the points he brought up. It’s easy to dismiss and be disrespectful but I appreciate you being a pro player and being respectful. I love you ESAMMMMMMM and I love smash

[@gildrax69]

Bread so you love Esam and you love Smash but would you Smash Esam? 😏

[@k2a2l2]

spittin facts

[@GoblinCrew]

@@gildrax69 I know my answer!

[@perkypears]

he definitely handled this way more maturely than just going on twitter and linking it saying like “this dude is dumb” or something

[@mlmooose8206]

Bread no u

[@kadabraguy9846]

I liked a lot of the original video, but the point that made the least sense to me was the "punishing air dodges was hype in Sm4sh" comment. Like, yea, it was cool to see players call each other out whenever it happened. But it was *only* cool because they were punishing a typically safe option. Like, 9 times out of 10, the player in disadvantage would just air dodge and get back to neutral safely. Having 1 cool interaction in exchange 9 lame ones isn't a good thing imo.

[@Robbie_Haruna]

And you can still get those rare air dodge punishes too, that's not somehting that's gone.

[@Mrhellslayerz]

FINALLY someone says it! The airdodge mechanic was the thing that ruined sm4sh for me, because it made the majority of gameplay way too safe. You just spam airdodge and almost never got punished for it. You either read the airdodge and pray that you timed your attack perfectly, or had to just wait for them to land on the ground and punish the landing lag (That's assuming that they don't roll or spot dodge right after, and you didn't use a multi-hit move for the punish). There was no middle ground.

[@harryvpn1462]

Imagine this guy playing brawlhalla

[@thel33tpenguinftw40]

@@Mrhellslayerz most characters had an arial that lasted for a decent amount of frames, timing was never too much of an issue I found if you're trying to get anything but the most optimal and powerful punish

[@Mrhellslayerz]

@@thel33tpenguinftw40 But optimization is what you NEED to get anywhere in any fighting game, period. Making the right/best call in smash 4 was almost impossible because of how defensive the game was. If both players were of equal skill at top level, they both would most likely be essentially jabbing each-other to a point where those jabs could kill you; and as such, the match would last forever. That's why most matches only had two stocks, and why most of the best characters were primarily focused on optimizing their punish game.

[@turtleturtle4887]

*here's a funny clip of him dieing*

[@Uwujarvis]

Isn't it dying?

[@mms7328]

@@koitern8785 pretty sure it dyeyeeyeing

[@Uwujarvis]

@@mms7328 damn how could I be so blind to the truth

[@malcovich_games]

Or isn't it dyeing?

[@Uwujarvis]

@@malcovich_games no I'm pretty sure it's dyeyeeyeing

[@ryaniiidukeofthehindlands7848]

“The competitive failings of smash ultimate” just a still image of g&w for 30 minutes

[@thickfrog5177]

And palutana nairing

[@NovaSolarsis835]

And Pac-Man

[@Jairjax]

g&w needs to be evicted from reality

[@judahroberts1203]

And half the characters in this game lmao

[@Jairjax]

fighting snake actually gives me an aneurysm

[@laogon09]

I disagree with the practice argument. With enough practice, you can be the greatest smash 64 player in the world and overcome every issue there is, but that does not make the game perfect, it makes your gameplay perfect. If there are mistakes in Ultimate's design or code, like the buffer role that they had to fix, sure you can play around it. Everyone can. But it also would objectively be better if the dev team addressed it and fixed it.

[@timercolen1586]

I mean the practice argument makes sense when its something that's not a flaw just a different way. Like buffer short hop is just different its not particularly bad unless full hops were really good which they aren't.

[@MineNAdventurer]

Couldn't that arguement be applied to another game thar I can't think of off the top of my head... Oh right, Melee

[@elliotjohnson6813]

yeah but that doesn’t classify as a failing of a game because you can play around it. a failing would make it impossible for the action to be performed. this just means you have to do something differently than in the past games

[@AHGavInDaUSA]

laogon09 practice is practice. No matter what you practice and no matter what road blocks are in the way you can practice avoiding said road blocks. Practice is practice.

[@arnerademacker8548]

@@elliotjohnson6813 If failing is defined as something you cannot play around then there are virtually no bad games. You can play around almost anything. The critique is towards Ultimates design which has some very notable flaws.

[@ianedwards1255]

to say that a meta is (repetitve) consistent is the opposite of a bad fighting game. if youve ever seen any sf5 critiques you will know an unstable competitive orbit is absolutely horrid. to say that smash rewards the best players for playing better than the second best player constantly is bad design is literally just saying "i dont care who's playing better i just wanna win or i just wanna see someone else win for once" or something like that

[@cag_0k642]

At that point it’s just the failings of human nature “I’m with you till you’re at the top! WAIT YOURE THE BEST PLAYER NOW NOOOO U SUCK THIS GAME IS LAME BECAUSE OF YOU I HOPE YOU LOSE SCRUB!!!!”

[@AHGavInDaUSA]

Ian Edwards top 8s are always super diverse

[@soul7168]

Maybe the camping is too repetitive hehehe but I honestly prefer consistent meta like Melee and a little bit of Ult unlike that sm4sh shit where cheese was everywhere

[@AHGavInDaUSA]

SouL do you have your in game pin as camilla

[@NocturnalFudj]

This is part of the video that I think was getting misunderstood. I say that I find the top tiers themselves to be more boring than previous games, not necessarily the meta. Yes the two are directly related but I acknowledge that Ultimate is by far the best balanced Smash game to date and totally agree with ESAM that there's been tons of diversity in Top 8's which is a good thing. My stance is just that as many different characters as there are popping up in Top 8's, because of the game's fundamental mechanics and how overcentralised I think a lot of them are on one or two tools, I still don't find it as interesting. That's not an objective flaw with the game, the game is very well balanced, it's just one guy's (my) opinion :)

[@Twofirmfeet1024]

Biggest competitive failure: giving Pikachu a kill throw. WHY?

[@Justpassingby204]

steelyfanz675 pika had a kill throw in smash 4

[@N0ngD0ngA]

@@Justpassingby204 r/woosh

[@Justpassingby204]

Josh Landers That sarcasm didn’t transfer over text very well. Can’t rly tell if it was serious bc a lot of ppl hate Pikachu

[@SpudboyDan]

He needs it

[@Noot_Penguin]

@@SpudboyDan No he doesn't

[@benjaminanderson3619]

Reading a spot dodge in Ultimate is the new "Reading a smash 4 airdodge"

[@tenacity25]

"moving forwards when you do attacks even when it's with the c stick and no directional inputs is annoying and messes up your spacing" M A R T H I S P A I N H E L P

[@meepster12345]

Yep, doesn’t make it better that Lucian is the way she is

[@lukey3474]

@@meepster12345 "Lucian"

[@neog8029]

Especially with Marth's hitboxes's priority being wack.

[@Calebblue101]

Yeah why can't Lucian be like other ADCs and scale harder... wait this is the wrong game?

[@Sakaki98]

PrimeFighter Lol

[@theblackbasketball]

Honestly, I’ve got nothing but respect for Fudj for making a video criticizing Ultimate.

[@runeblade6596]

I disagree with your take on dash dancing quite a bit here. For one, you say that it would just make slow characters ass but keep in mind that dash dancing uses a character's initial dash speed, not their run speed. Remember that in ultimate initial dash speeds are mostly normalized, which is why a character like Wolf can still look and feel somewhat fast in this game by foxtrotting. Plus I think that all the ways you listed how these characters in melee make up for not having a good dash dance are actually good. I think it's neat that the game has plenty of fast characters that are good for it alongside plenty of aerial heavy characters or characters with projectiles or heavy punishes meant to make up for it. Could it be executed better in melee balance-wise? Most likely, but still you acknowledge that being slower doesn't have to mean that the character is bad for being slow, so I'd argue it's more about how you design individual characters around a game engine than an innate engine problem itself. I also think that in a game that is very neutral-heavy and spacing and positioning dependent the more players can micromanage their movements the better 9 times out of 10, even if it comes at an inherent slight expense of slower characters.

[@imESAM]

Hm, the initial dash speed is actually a really good point...

[@shimmer6382]

@@imESAM your mom gay

[@dugtrioramen]

Not to mention that jump squat is only 3 frames now so it would even worse if you had to consistently time short hops. 3 frames also makes it easier to get the full hop if you're not buffering, where as in smash 4, it was annoying that some characters would do short hops because of their long jump squat

[@indigoiozzi]

Yes, trying to make short hopping more consistent was a good idea, but they approached it poorly. And this is the point, that it could have been handled better.

[@daEINSTEINkid1]

@@indigoiozzi exactly, the point is that there should be a toggle for players who dont want to be locked into not being able to buffer fullhop aerials/dont need the help of autoshorthop aerials

[@Cheezmonka]

@@daEINSTEINkid1 I would greatly appreciate being able to map them to separate buttons, personally. Just as an option, of course.

[@TehAnimeHQ]

Granted sometimes you need to do a short up and not buffer the aerial to continue a combo in ult which makes doing that extremely difficult when the person starts getting used to mindlessly throwing out ariels and buffering them constantly. Not to mention look at all other smash games with the amount of variety in it. It makes characters feel different from each other giving a sense of variety. Sure it made characters like bowser worse because of it, but Ganon is still arguably one of the worst characters in ultimate with his 3 frame jump squat and it just lets him spam nair over and over with no thought. It takes out variety in how characters move and make certain combos way more difficult because you can't buffer a full hop and some combos rely on you using the frame 3 jump squat. So it actually makes the game really technical in a way they didn't intend.

[@-snek.]

This is completely and entirely unrelated to the discussion at hand. Pikachu shield wiggling is the best thing I've seen in my entire life.

[@moonsad7514]

snek. If you wanna do it(assuming you don’t know how), hold shield and b, this will cancel your ability to roll, and will let you move around your shield with the analog

[@holyfrackledang]

Moonsad Alternatively, you can hold both shield buttons assuming you have more than one mapped

[@kuracyn]

The uk scene is full of palus now. Fudj left at the right time

[@danielnesbit6177]

Idek where any tourneys would be in uk

[@kuracyn]

Daniel Nesbit - this is the smash UK discord. Ask here! discord.gg/gWxdYyV

[@sham_noway]

stfu Pika main

[@kuracyn]

Shambole you’re toxic pls stoppp 😂😂

[@bootieos7701]

I'm from the UK as a Luigi main, if that makes you feel any better.

[@stealthskater66]

I feel like the movement in smash 4 is a bit smoother and the spacing felt a little easier to me. But ultimate is the superior game by far in many other respects. Faster gameplay. No skid animations. Directional air dodge. No spammable air dodge. Rolls get slower the more you spam. Parrying is the better shield mechanic but I agree you should get bigger rewards against projectiles. The balancing of the game overall is much better than smash 4. It’s fine if you prefer smash 4 but that doesn’t make ultimate bad

[@qaz123123123123]

It's crazy because as someone who prefers smash 4 I feel the opposite on a lot of the points. I feel directional airdodge is a worse mechanic, parrying is worse than power shield, and the the dash dancing in 4 feels better and more free. These are all just preferences though

[@blazeburchett2757]

@@qaz123123123123 opinions are nice aren't they

[@blazeburchett2757]

To be honest I like all of the smash games cause they always bring something new

[@DANCERcow]

Directional air dodging is what gave you wave dashing in melee...

[@qaz123123123123]

@Baked I loved the 50/50 trapping in brawl/S4 where you could tell where someone would be drifting/landing and you just had to read the timing of if they airdodged or not so you could set yourself up to cover both options based on reaction. Like if you're trying to cover someone landing you can either do the attack instantly or wait for the airdodge and punish the airdodge lag, but in ult they can airdodge away and now you have to cover a completely new area and in certain situations cant in time. Also airdodging to ledge is just such a bad mechanic and makes edgeguarding so much worse and buffs bad recoveries. Also ult's dash dancing feels just so much more restrictive and clunky and you have to wait much longer to do an input

[@zzenuss]

im not trying to sound passive aggressive with this, but i really love how esam takes every opportunity he gets to say he's a top player

[@mathunit1]

@Rensi He's not wrong, maybe???

[@mathunit1]

@Rensi I guess not, sorry for assuming wrong.

[@sahelanthropus-1777]

I like it, it makes him more legitimate as the only person above the top players is Sakurai.

[@mistake1197]

@Rensi i can defend nintendo online's trash online with that same argument.

[@7PlayingWithFire7]

@Rensi you just framed his valid point differently to undermine it. You can do that with everything, it's not an argument

[@dietsodadude]

A lot of ESAM's arguements seem to be to just get better at the game. By that measure, no game is ever competitively bad because it absolves the game of any responsibility to be accessible, balanced, or entertaining to watch.

[@ColmK83]

Tbh I think ESAM is just stubbornly defending the game even when clear issues are pointed out.

[@mistake1197]

@@ColmK83 yeah esam is one of those.....

[@shacka95]

Arguably being able to reliably buffer short hop aerials does make smash ultimate more accessible to less skilled players. And unbalanced the game is not... Not at all.

[@shacka95]

Not only that but let's take your sentiment and put it in a different situation. If the devs wanted melee to be completely accessible to n64 players, they would not have brought any new mechanics or gameplay changes over to the new game. That would have been the big oof. Games can't just stay the same with each iteration because players got used to things being one way.

[@Spearra]

One of the reasons I tend to take rhythm games more seriously than fighting games. Doesn't have weird control issues and is just fundamentally difficult. Not "artificially difficult".

[@DrSlump-fz9ki]

This is basically the same video as Core-A-Gaming’s video on the consequences of lowering the skill gap. Some people won’t like it because it goes against what was previously established in other games. Games like KOF and Tekken have established fans because while the games change slightly, the games aren’t changed enough to where the games aren’t so different from what came before it. Smash Ultimate is so different from Brawl and Smash 4 that it turns people off of the game, you can see the same thing with a game like Street Fighter 5. Also, a failing is not a failure as you describe, the latter is a complete lack of success, a failing is simply a weakness.

[@lifetake3103]

The failing thing still doesn't refute the idea that many of these points are subjective and not objective like the title portrays

[@mathunit1]

Feels like Smash Ultimate gains more people than turning off Smash 4 fans though.

[@DrSlump-fz9ki]

lifetake I mean, that in itself is informed by perspective just like a lot of other competitive aspects. Opinions on a game are not universal, you can see this in tier lists with characters like my main Marth being anywhere from low tier to high tier, or you can even see thoughts from other competitors like Leffen differ from someone like ESAM. Absolute objectivity is not something that is possible, and the creator of the video that critiques Ultimate is no exception.

[@DrSlump-fz9ki]

Oliver Xu In terms of more players overall, I could accept that, I do think that a lot of the top players from last game basically are the top ones here with a few exceptions, and not many newer players showing off their stuff. You also see people not performing as well due to them trying to forsake muscle memory built up over a long time from a game like Brawl or Smash 4 not doing as well because of the changes

[@DavidGonzalez-sm3yu]

Oliver Xu well to be fair part of that has to do with the switch being a much better console than the Wii U so much more people were intrigued for that reason.

[@laogon09]

The only critique I completely agree with is the aerial direction thing. Basically the buffer system only remembering you pressed "attack" instead of the attack's direction could be relatively easy to fix from a programming perspective. I know that this is the way the game is and everything, but this one has no "good reason" for it, it's just the buffer system not being complete enough.

[@Fuckjaredmilton]

Or you could change your stick sensitivity. I was on high, then went to normal then went low and now my rar's and pivoting are stellar. The game itself has a ton of features to customize how your controller responds to inputs

[@stephenschuster3555]

doing a c stick nair happens a lot when buffering an aerial out of a parry

[@galaxygoats2541]

You’re attack cancelling, make sure you jump before you flick your c stick

[@seansolo3583]

Why would you be buffering an aerial with the c stick? You can only buffer short hop aerials so why not just press a and jump and hold a direction?

[@stephenschuster3555]

@@seansolo3583 habit, I usually just use c stick for aerials in general because then my movement is pretty autonomous from which way I'm swining

[@galaxygoats2541]

Sean Solo if you use the c stick you can control the drift and better space the move

[@seansolo3583]

Galaxy Goats I suppose, but generally rising aerials aren’t safe even if spaced, and if you’re doing them out of shield it’s unlikely that the drift will really help you a lot anyways

[@Dr3am9553]

This video is coming from the perspective that ultimate came out of the box perfectly. And we just have to accept. Where as Fudj video is more from the perspective of the rest of the series and the fact that you can patch the game. SH aerials could have easily been solved with sh button. Instead they went with this backwards way of doing it. Then tried to retcon it with the jump button press. The rest of the series didn't have a hold buffer. So you could angle your airdodge and just hold it to land with shield in that direction The design failure is the addition of the hold buffer. Something unneeded

[@Doberbull]

22:31 He really managed to sneak in a “Pikachu. Busted.” into a non Pika related video...

[@pickleplayer33]

Not sure how I feel about how he seems to imply that *none* of ultimates control designs are "flawed" but simply need to be overcome with practice. Of course there are aspects of design that make a game "different" that can be overcome with practice. But there are also aspects that can be considered objectively bad. Designing a game where the left and right movement controls are reversed; of course that could be overcome with practice, but it's fucking stupid. Why would you do it. It doesn't add any depth to the game, it just makes the learning curve for new players more difficult. Like melee's L-canceling mechanic. There aren't many melee players out there that will vouch for it being a "good" mechanic. I'm pretty sure most players wouldn't even consider it "different" it's really just a bad mechanic. It never returned, and no one misses it.

[@shimmer6382]

Like i legit dont get that part lol. Wow is the punishment for having big hands? (Like me and probably millions of Americans) wow you have bad counterplay fucking trash noob. :/

[@faydo2787]

Did you forget the multiple parts where he said if it was from the perspective of "design" he totally agrees?

[@eliwixson8863]

L-cancelling doesn't make melee uncompetitive. People won't vouch for it being good, but people also won't say it makes high level play less skillful. It's just not very relevant to a discussion about whether or not a game is competitive.

[@LeftySSBU]

Yo literally Esam is by far one of the nicest top players. It’s like his aggressive play style goes against his humble personality. Love Esam 👍🏻

[@chrissaturn489]

You should check his Twitter lol

[@lapplandkun9273]

@@chrissaturn489 what about his twitter?

[@lifetake3103]

But have you seen Zackray????

[@LeftySSBU]

lifetake yeah man they’re both amazing people and players

[@seansolo3583]

John Zhou occasionally Esam can be less than civil on Twitter, he tends to take things super personally and can overreact sometimes, which leads to a lot of stupid twitter disputes that could have been avoided

[@GokuTheSuperSaiyan1]

Fudj: I dislike this mechanic and think it's stupid Esam: Just adapt bro Obviously Esam's point is a little more nuanced than that, but not too far off. Esam makes the point that the game makes sense. Well all games make sense with their own programming. That doesn't mean the game will be fun or good. That's a separate question.

[@thelastgogeta]

Yeah, if you are going to compete you are going to have to put more time in and Fudj admitted that he didn't put in the time. That said, some quirks are absurd or unfortunate which ESAM agreed on. We can only hope for a patch (airdodge buffer got better) or endure. Fudj did make some faulty points as well, but good to have ESAM bounce off his points in a respectful way still.

[@toowiggly]

GokuTheSuperSaiyanDemon it’s not too unreasonable to adapt to minor quirks that the game has, especially when changing it would make different people unsatisfied with the nuances with the mechanics. For major problems that everyone complains about and are easily fixed, they do tend to fix. And saying they can add a toggle for everything isn’t the greatest point since a lot of the code can rely on the thing that’s toggleable which cause a lot effort to make it toggleable and cause huge bugs.

[@ty-dn5pm]

Just because someone dislikes a mechanic doesn't mean that mechanic is bad, ESAM is essentially saying that his skill level isn't enough to judge what is a "failing" and what is something that he simply isn't good at dealing with. The Palu nair is a good example to this, the guy that made the video makes you think Palu nair is the best move in the entire smash history when a lot of top players don't even think it's her best AERIAL.

[@carsonclay2965]

10:24 I can see how it might be awkward for a veteran switching to a new game, but with Ultimate being my first Smash game I found the buffer system to be easy to understand and intuitive.

[@spindingus]

Play smash 4 so you can get both perspectives

[@LunaDachi]

SpyroMan745 Thats a stupid way to go about getting true understanding. Carson would probably say “wow, none of these mechanics of the buffer system make sense” in regards to smash 4 Edit: Makes NO sense

[@spindingus]

Dachi T. That’s exactly my point. If he does that then he’ll be able to understand the feelings some smash 4 players may have in regards to ultimate.

[@LunaDachi]

SpyroMan745 missing one word really changes the context of a sentence LOL

[@spindingus]

Dachi T. What are you referring to?

[@cbrocafe]

You can try to adjust to the games mechanics all you want and “git gud” but it doesn’t mean the game mechanics are good or designed properly for competitive play. There is definitely a difference between skill gap and poor design and smash ultimate leans towards poor design. You shouldn’t have to fight with the controls to be good

[@Ninjaananas]

Tell that Melee.

[@BboP_]

Ninjaananas ???

[@ephemeralbro]

@@Ninjaananas melee bad

[@Ninjaananas]

@@ephemeralbro It is competitively.

[@Spearra]

That last sentence is me with Starcraft Brood Wars LOL. SC2 is how a highly complicated game can control silky smoothly.

[@richpichu1272]

Omg I forgot about the “miss input” rolls I’d never roll and I’d get punished for it I forgot that happened or existed

[@LeonCamero]

I only get them when you try to input a c stick + jump during shielding. It's still a thing.

[@princedemo9291]

Basically the TL:DR is “get good”

[@Birzt]

I agree with Fudj more than Esam but I still think Esam made great points. Most my issues still come from fighting the buffer which has caused me to no longer practice MK since the buffer feels horrible with him. I am used to the buffer and largely don't have it screw me, but I would say it is still garbage in many areas (mostly c-stick).

[@lankysapien3032]

shoutouts to the maplestory background music. memories.

[@yoyepo91]

just wanted to critique a couple of points. At the beginning- bad controls and the buffer system- you say it is too harsh to call these failures, but that is by definition what they are. Some team designed and implemented them, and they hurt the ability to control your character. Yes, you can learn to get around it, but to this day I still see professional players losing stocks when trying to do things like tech and get a buffered air dodge. This is design failure. At 19:40 You also said he contradicted himself when discussing different moves and fixing character weaknesses. You then ironically contradicted yourself when you said characters like Pacman and Rob are good because they can zone, but can beat you up close as well. Where's the weakness? That's kind of the point- many of the top tiers have no or few weaknesses, whereas lower tier characters like incineroar and DK have many obvious weaknesses. I suspect they thought weight would play a bigger role, but really it comes down to (chance of winning neutral x payoff for winning neutral) Nerf or buff, but they should be balanced. 16:45 In smash you just need to give characters moves that are each good in their own situation. Palutena's nair is an example of extremely bad game design compared to the rest of the cast. I understand other games have badly designed characters, but they don't have the movement freedom of smash that allows character's other buffed moves to compensate and create new playstyles, like with pokemon trainer and Ike. I do love your point about brawl Marth though- I think alot more situations in the game should be 50/50s instead of combos. I yawn every time I see an inkling get their kill throw, but 50/50s are exciting to watch. Also 21:40 you are right, but this is an older, less balanced game and I honestly just expect more in terms of balance today since they have had time and with today's technology can get constant feedback from top players.

[@theimpersonator7086]

That vid did bring up some good points for me like the movement and buffer. Ultimate would be a significantly better game with Melee Wavedashing/Ledge Dashing/Landing, Shield Dropping, and Melee Dash Dancing for me. It would substantially improve whiff punishing and neutral. The buffer being toned down, or given options of having no bufffer would be a good compromise. However, some points he makes are bizarre or incorrect. Most notably would be characters being played the same way by top players, showing a lack of character expression. There are so many examples that could prove this wrong. Some would include .The top 3 Olimars .Paser vs Light .Leo's Joker vs Zachrays .Marss vs Japans's Zero Suits .Tweek vs Gluto .Prodigy vs DWizzy

[@mastanvx]

Yeah, I loved that Bowser had a kill confirm in Sm4sh, but quickly got bored because he became very "flow-charty". And sure, maybe you feel the game would be better with Melee mechanics and movement, but honestly I didn't like how technical that game become at a high level, and I felt it erased the personality of the characters when they were all sliding around like loons. I like how much more natural the characters feel in Ultimate. Now that his other options have been expanded (including his aerial game) I feel like he is much more adaptable and fun to play.

[@SlunkyBoi]

Best comment I’ve seen down here lmao, great points

[@DrGandW]

I don't enjoy wave dashing but I agree with everything else plus Ultimate's buffer sucks.

[@theimpersonator7086]

@@mastanvx I would disagree about better movement and Melee tech like Edge Cancel aerials making characters feel the same. Quite the contrary, characters in Melee use the movement and tech in that game differently against characters to compliment their kits. For instance: Sheik uses wave dashing a lot for tech chasing since her kit is heavily reliant on it. Meanwhile, you have Marth who uses Wave Dashing more as a mixup in neutral(he does use it for tech chasing as well, but you get the point).

[@3ddumpyard]

I mean, calling it a significantly better game if it included wavedashing is kind of a personal preference.

[@lot8113]

Ik this video old af, but here's the problem I see with it. Only because you can get good at something, it doesn't mean that something is not worth criticizing. If the controls of smash ultimate feel good to you, good on you, but honestly most of the things he said are generally annoying. The fact you can learn to deal with that doesn't change this at all. The difference between hard in a cool way and hard in a frustrating way can be the lack of consistency, lack of explicitness in the goal, or forced and stupid levels of difficulty. I don't know what he was referring to here (maybe all three) but the différenciation between cool difficulty and frustrating difficulty is as far as I know a thing.

[@Cheesehead302]

That's the way I see it as well, and fudj's follow up video explained it pretty well. Sure you can adapt to something's short comings to over come its limits, but the limitations being there in the first place isn't good. It would be kind of like if Mario Odyssey decided that it want to remove momentum based platforming and made it so Mario's jumps are exactly the same despite what his speed is. It would take away the fun and intuitiveness of the physics, but you could still technically "get used to it." Doesn't mean it's fun or makes any logical sense to begin with though.

[@lot8113]

@@Cheesehead302 exactly. The core point imo esam missed here was that sure, you can enjoy a flawed game like ultimate, but that doesn't mean that its shortcomings are addressable by just saying "git gud lol". There is a disconnection between whether or not you enjoy a game and whether or not you find flaws with it. In fact the two things are almost completely independent. There are much deeper implications of this idea but I'll stop here.

[@Cheesehead302]

@@lot8113 Yeah, even having these problems with Ultimate I can still enjoy it. Doesn't mean I don't think they're problems that need fixing though.

[@jamesflanagan6261]

What’s funny is, I think Fudj’s opinion on top-tiers being overcentralized by spamming really good moves is a problem that a lot of the mid-tiers have. Like Samus, her whole neutral is based around her charge shot. Luigi’s neutral is based around him getting the grab. Zelda, with her constantly charging her phantom. I find characters like this really one-dimensional because their other options are only subpar so they have to rely on their one really strong, polarizing move or gimmick. I think the top to high tiers have pretty well designed movesets. But not all 80 characters can be well designed, you will have your duds here and there.

[@Alex-gl8li]

Even gimmick character can be fun to play with/against, it's not bad design, it is linear design. I feel that (especialy compare to older smash game) every character has at least a decent design (except maybe Kirby).

[@jamesflanagan6261]

@@Alex-gl8li Agree to disagree but you can't sit here and tell me Luigi and Lil Mac are well-designed characters and fun to play against. At least Kirby has a functional moveset, these characters just feel half-baked.

[@Alex-gl8li]

@@jamesflanagan6261 Luigi is fun, linear but I found it fun. Lil Mac too. Maybe my standart are low, but I like them.

[@LeonCamero]

@@jamesflanagan6261 Little mac with attack canceling is fun. That's the only time I'll say that.

[@8bitdiedie]

James Flanagan Could you not say this about every Smash game though? What player isn’t trying to get away with utilizing their best move(s) as much as possible to easily rack up damage/kill.

[@siLveRscOpe13x]

14:07 When you make the point "You play this game competitively," it misses the mark. He doesn't play competitively. Neither do I. This is BECAUSE of the buffer system and the feel of control. I don't like the movement. I don't like how clunky and awkward the game feels. So I went back to melee/ P+. For those who actually enjoy this game competitively and don't mind the way it feels, that's fine. Your point is valid at that time. People who put the time in SHOULD just "practice" and get better at it. However, Those of us who don't like it and went to other games, it's just Smash's loss. I still enjoy this game on a casual level. I play every now and then. And Ultimate did a lot of good things. Literally, the terrible control is the only thing holding me back from investing time into playing this game competitively. . Good to see Ultimate is doing well, though. Hopefully, if Nintendo gets around to making another Smash game, they take what they did well in Ultimate and improve the feel of the game. They do that, it will be the best Smash of all time.

[@Spearra]

Duude that is why I ended up playing rhythm games more than fighters. I don't have to fight the controls in a rhythm game LOL I want to like fighting games but there's one too many minor kinks that add up and kill it for me.

[@ThatGuyThai]

Esam you cant hit me with the maplestory soundtrack I wasn't ready for the wave of nostalgia, I could cry from the good memories of a simpler time

[@sarahannsfriend9332]

Change title to “Esam tells Fudj to adapt”

[@MAlru005]

Esam right though

[@septimustache6359]

@@MAlru005 no, not really...

[@KageumiUmikage]

@valy0f Can you explain why it’s fundamentally a better fighter game? Microspacing is nearly impossible in the game due to the native input lag and buffer system. The neutral game is less fundamental imo, it’s more about spamming safe aerials and guessing, reactions are usually thrown out the window. I’d like to hear why ultimate’s a better game fundamentally. The game is also get this guy to a high percent, then throw or spam a safe string aerial and hit him. Lack of combos make this even more so.

[@sarahannsfriend9332]

valy0f you can kind of say the same thing about Ultimate.

[@KageumiUmikage]

@valy0f Bro, the game is forgiving when it comes to shield pressure. You have the ability to spot dodge or act before the player in shield can punish the aerial. If you have a fast jab, the shielding character will get punished due to how bad grabs are in this game, unless you’ve got a bbc grab hitbox like palutena. Although I agree poorly spaced aerials will get you punished, it’s lenient cause moves are generally more safe and the input lag makes it harder to punish. Aerials are nearly lagless in this game, including grounded attacks which are plus on shield. You’re more likely to get pressured and have nothing you can do about it, unless you have a braindead up oos. The neutral game is honestly not great imo

[@mackchop3274]

I watched Fudj’s original video and made a comment. Came here to see what Esam thought, and then he pretty much said and explained for the first ten minutes of this video what I had commented on Fudj’s video earlier.

[@BlackTylerOG]

Him complaining about top players playing the same is like saying “all Steve Fox players do is punch”

[@supersmashdylan]

Love it

[@somerandomdude5986]

Albatross time 😳

[@steelbeans]

Here are some actually failing Balancing throughout the roster is inconsistent. Some characters moves work and other just dont. S ok me characters have the same move that are just strictly better on someone else (snakes up tilt being shared with similar but much worse up tilts.) Some characters get random buffs like Ylink and characters that have similar problems consistency wise do not

[@alexthorne1416]

I won’t say it’s a perfectly balanced game, but in terms of how you said some characters have moves that are identical but better like Snakes up tilt, the point is that one move being really good doesn’t make a character. Rest is a frame 1 invincible move with a hit OC that is basically the entire character model and kills super early with confirms into it, but puff isn’t a top tier just because of the one move. Some individual moves can be objectively better or worse versions of others but that doesn’t necessarily break the balance because those moves then have different contextual meaning in whatever characters moveset they are in and thats ok

[@jormungandrtheserpentsaint1414]

@@alexthorne1416 I realize this comment is super old but I can't help but to ask...the way you explained rest was pretty accurate. But do you honestly think that a "competitive " game should ever have a move like that in the first place? Ok so bc you literally can't win with one move that makes it a ok? In a "competitive " game? Nonsense

[@jormungandrtheserpentsaint1414]

@@alexthorne1416 play tekken. Not a perfect game by any means either but if there were a character that had a move that took 80% of a person's health bar and the hitbox covered the entire character and it was super fast on startup and you could COMBO into it? Could you see how that isn't quite ideal for a true competitive game?

[@BL3446]

Best point though. Bury/Grab mechanics that make rapidly mashing a skill are incredibly jank and really need fixed. My method is to make each input more effective at breaking you out of the grab, but only accept individual inputs every like 10 frames instead of every frame.

[@salvatore_slate]

Sneaky does this not still result in the optimal strategy being mashing? this just lowers the skill floor

[@KotalaGod]

@@salvatore_slate mashing is NOT a skill

[@lifetake3103]

@@KotalaGod Well its skill just not a very well looked upon skill

[@KotalaGod]

@@lifetake3103 mashing the right way doesn't take any skill. A child could do it. Unless you have something preventing you from moving your fingers and hands very fast, then no, it's not really a skill.

[@lifetake3103]

@@KotalaGod yet somehow we have better mashers than others at high pro play...

[@TheAllocatedReviewer]

I was nearly the whole way through this before i realized you had maplestory music in the background. Thats what i call hidden nostalgia. Nice touch!

[@RK-zc6gj]

The problem with this vid is basically Esam saying just to “get good”. But that’s just not a valid excuse for smash games anymore. This is the fifth and largest installment in the franchise. At this point, with such a talented dev team, smash fans need to stop settling for inferior quality mechanics when they’ve been done better in previous smash games. These are basic aspects to a platform fighting game that never should have been so clunky in the first place, especially with the massive scope of this game. I’m not saying smash ultimate is bad, in fact it’s my favorite smash game to date simply because of the insane amount of amazing fighters and content in this game. But it’s not a perfect smash game and there is room for improvement.

[@Ninjaananas]

Like which mechanics and in which games were they better? I already hear Melee fanboys complaining about refined mechanics and always want it to be overly technical. You are the first I hear to go towards the other direction.

[@RK-zc6gj]

Ninjaananas alright, before we discuss, I want to stress that I have no nostalgic connection to melee, and I wasn’t even around for it’s release but I used to play it a lot at my friend’s house. That being said melee was a faster, much more fluid and responsive game than smash ultimate which is why most people who’ve played melee still prefer melee over smash ultimate. On top of that, there were an enormous amount of various complex combos that could be pulled off to demonstrate much more expressive play styles than in smash ultimate. It rewarded risk and aggression far more than boring defensive camping gameplay. I’ll admit, some of the techniques were simply cheap exploits that Sakurai unintended to be in the game, but that doesn’t take away from just how wide the range of play styles and the skill gap was. On top of this, smash ultimate as of right now has the clunkiest controls out of any smash game other than brawl, and the input lag. Holy shit is that input lag bad. It’s so inconsistent that it feels like you’re playing a completely different game, especially online. Now the good news is most, if not all of these frustrating issues can be fixed with some simple tweaks via updates and some issues have already been fixed as of the writing of this comment and the game has plenty of time to be perfected and become the undisputed best smash game ever by far. If this is the final batch of dlc we’re getting and then they’re done supporting the game in the future, that’s still well over a year for the dev team to make some big changes to fix the games problems.

[@Ninjaananas]

Rayyan Karim Melee is in some aspects faster, but not in all. How is it more fluit and responsive? And it is blatantly wrong to claim most people who have played Melee like it more. It is not only wrong but insulting since it insinuates that people who prefer Ultimate only do so because they do not know Melee which is just wrong. A lot of people experienced Melee to feel clunky and went back to other Smash games. Combos like shine into shine into shine into shine into shine into shine? Just kidding. But combos are not the matter. Why do you bring them up? Do not dissapoint me by shifting the issue. And many like Ultimate for not being too combo heavy. Explain that with the aggression and the risks. Ultimate can be played very aggressivly. Many high tiers have a very good offense. And defensive gameplay is not boring. It is very intriguing and camping is a valid tactic. How is it clunky? I find it to be the best. Melee is usually experienced to be clunky. The consistency was already talked abou it the video. I never felt inconsistency. But all this aside. What mechanics are you talking about? That was the topic.

[@RK-zc6gj]

Ninjaananas you do realize most melee players who’ve played ultimate have already gone back to melee right? And while ultimate does have its own set of complex combos, melee undoubtedly has more of them. On top of this, melee’s physics are far more intuitive such as momentum carried into your jumps, l-cancelling, and proper wavedashing. And no ultimate has little to no reward for taking risks and going after your opponent. If you get grabbed, you take stupid damage off of the simplest inputs from your opponent. And if you seriously think camping is a valid tactic then you clearly don’t know what skillful play is. Anybody can stand at the edge and just charge up a shot or spam simpler projectiles such as missiles or fireballs. It’s cheap, boring, and not skill-requiring. While some defensive gameplay may be interesting to watch, for the most part it’s boring and unexpressive. In smash 4 it was very easy to tell if zero and armada were playing compared to say, hungrybox and mew2king. Same with melee. Smash ultimate on the other hand is a lot harder to explain who’s playing who because of how one dimensional the game is. Not only that, but smash ultimate is objectively the most unresponsive game in the series with a ridiculous 0.1 seconds of input lag between the button press and the command happening on-screen.

[@RK-zc6gj]

Ninjaananas are you going to try and form a rebuttal? It seems like we had a good conversation going.

[@TheIceManSSB2001]

It's refreshing to see someone respectfully critique something like this instead of this chip away at it and be passive aggressive

[@leelee8d793]

I mean, Fudj does have a Point. It's waaaaaaay more exciting to watch 2 Bayo Players hold gun for 2 Minutes than MKLeo reverse 6-0ing Tweek

[@mrgibbles5427]

Bad joke

[@retrokingranch]

**Cries in super heavyweight matchup spread**

[@adamquenano8563]

You should do more reaction vids your perspective is heavily underrated.

[@skiph8957]

I think people don't respect him because he speaks his opinion even if it is very wrong. He also gets clowned on for only winning a single major in his infinite long career. His opinion is very underrated I'd agree with you.

[@adamquenano8563]

Skiph It’s his delivery at times and when he does his high pitched voice reciting someone’s opinions that annoy people.

[@skiph8957]

adam quenano I mean that too. But from my experience people don’t take his opinions seriously for the reasons I stated. But you’re right people should listen to him more

[@mad-dash6448]

6:17 so you admit that it’s unintuitive, but then backtrack to say git gud

[@jayandjlps]

Cuz he's a blind fanboy

[@danielrazo450]

I agree with ESAM. I mean, people say Melee is the best smash of all time, and you have to actively exploit the game's bugs in order to do competitive level stuff, and it's the same people that are saying that you have to jump thru weird hoops in order to do competitive stuff in ultimate.

[@mrgibbles5427]

Agreed

[@tomholt1080]

Most high level stuff in fighting games is exploiting game mechanics. Fun fact when people complain about wavedashing saying its an exploit or cheating. Did you know that comboing was a glitch in street fighter. Now its a staple of fighting games.

[@sinahafizi5630]

One thing I wanna clear up is that in melee players rarely exploit bugs. Many of the things people consider bugs in melee like famously wave dashing and l canceling were saw by sakurai early in devolpment and chosen to keep intentionally, so in reality they are only exploiting intended mechanics and not bugs. Also I agree that mechanics that can be adapted to without too much effort and offer some sort of benefit should be left alone, but that shouldn't excuse the mechanics that aren't very helpful and/or can be easily fixed with something like a toggle. But idk that's just my opinion.

[@scottyj8655]

@@sinahafizi5630 L cancelling wasn't seen early on in development it was an entirely intended mechanic that was in 64 as well.

[@Cheesehead302]

@@tomholt1080 I know this is about a year too late, but there was an interview where Sakurai acknowledged the development team noticed you could wave dash while they were making the game. So idk if wavedashing is actually even a glitch in the first place. Even if it was though, I really don't understand why so many people have a problem with it. They label it as a glitch because that sounds like some dirty word that makes it seem like if you use that mechanic you're cheating, when it works the same for everyone.

[@matthewcharles9813]

I appreciate your approach of debating and acknowledging preferences are not enough to fail something that factually works. Most people just argue and get nowhere with it. Everything deserves to be questioned and critiqued without taking it personal. Keep up the good work esam and others that handle things like this.

[@0815Snickersboy]

Whats actually bad about smash ultimate: - I have a 500k connection with an ethernet cable and still get matched against people with like 2 seconds of delay. I never had a single laggy game on anthers ladder the matchmaking should take ping into account. - Also I don't like getting items or stage hazards or stuff.

[@thefufster]

The mindset thing with swapping between smash 4 and ultimate is actually a super valid point I hadn't thought of before. I had a huge jump from smash 4 to ultimate like right off the bat, and I think it was because I was so ready to just start over, and begin a new game that it really gave me that extra devotion. Like I went from going 0-2 pretty consistently to taking games off of the Austin PR. Like I 2-0'd Hakii (much later on tho lol) which felt amazing. Anyways, point is that ESAM brings up random super good points that I don't normally think of and that's why I watch his videos.

[@power0029]

19:21 “Why do you want the 15 bad ones to be good?” Isn’t that the entire point of patches? To make bad characters better?

[@thajuice6695]

Yeah he contradicts himself by asserting the precedent of learning matchups but proceeds to say that having an extra 15 better chracters therefore more matchup to learn would be less preferable despite the viabilty gap of said 15 characters (Im not emphazizing the quantity of 15. I know he said that for variable's sake.)

[@thajuice6695]

@Baked lmao bro i agree with you. I was just critiquing ESAMs contradiction not asserting my own ( i just noticed you ment to reply to the commenter not me)

[@thajuice6695]

Trust me, i dont want mac, k rool, and isabelle to get buffed. I hate those characters so much despite their "low tier" association

[@Nintendicted]

One thing I feel like he should have mentioned in the video is airdodging into the ground. It's so weird that airdodges have so much endlag but so little landing lag, makes it hard to punish airdodges sometimes which they clearly wanted to be a commitment in this game

[@Undersol83]

Thanks for making this video. When I watched fudj's video I felt like he was, not necessarily incorrect, but like biased. I didn't know how to put that complaint into words, except maybe a flippant mean comment like "I get it you like smash4 more" which isn't the way I want to act online and you addressed, but the other problems with his critique I didn't know how to challenge. So thanks it probably means more coming from a pro player than it would've from me too. I didn't comment on the video cause he made some good criticisms. I do think you found the thing that made me, in my gut, want to disagree, which was the way he sort of overshot/overreacted to the flaws he highlighted. The "I'm correctness" was the biggest problem with fudj's video I now realize, like the video title almost made me skip it for being a smarter-than-you rant. I don't wanna seem like I'm talking shit. fudj's video had good points but once it ended I felt kinda unsure how it made me feel and your video addresses my feelings about it.

[@Robbie_Haruna]

He had some good points, but in addition to having a lot of bias, there was stuff that was just outright incorrect or a gross exaggeration (and not a comedic one like the peg leg/eating shit hyperbole,) like grossly oversimplifying all the top tiers he complained about as revolving around one move or gimmick, and his stuff about balance changes and updates seemed pretty outdated (albeit it may have been made long before certain buffs happened,) but the buffs have given notable improvements to a good number of characters, even if nothing has drastically shaken up the meta (which is like one of the last things you want to happen from an update in a good competitive game.)

[@b-mo272]

Personally I watched his video viewing from, as esam said, "design failings" instead of competitive failings without knowing it, and I somewhat agreed / understood most of his points from thAT perspective, as "yeah while playing that doesn't seem really fun to happen." but viewing it from a competitive standpoint you can just say "get used to it" or "just practice", which I think is the biggest problem, is how he labeled it.

[@b-mo272]

@@Robbie_Haruna that's true, mostly buffs don't really affect a characters meta, but some more recent patches like jiggs getting pound to rest, or doc getting down tilt up b, it is getting better even if they aren't reinventing or shifting anything in a characters moveset by a lot

[@xNightxxWingx]

CD 2021 - Both games are fucking horrible

[@Robbie_Haruna]

@@xNightxxWingx Imagine actually thinking both Smash 4 and Ultimate are horrible games.

[@jeffwa8118]

As a melee player, what i get from this is "play slower so you get the inputs you want." Also you can compare different games competitive viability with eachother, its not just "learn the new game git gud." People play games for different reasons, and one of those things is how rewarding shit is to do, what's the hardest thing in Ultimate, fighting against the buffer?

[@KroCalGames]

The competitive failing of Smash 4: Rage

[@arsenicsauce]

And Bayonetta

[@KageumiUmikage]

Rage, ledge trumps, upthrow up air, cloud and bayonetta.

[@Robbie_Haruna]

@@KageumiUmikage I'd say not just Up Throw Up Air. Grabs in general lol. Smash 4 grabs were stupid busted.

[@KageumiUmikage]

Robbie Haruna I was slightly memeing but I agree lol. Hated shield grab bros I can’t believe it was even worse before the shield stun change.

[@shinygekkouga52]

Fudj's video more or less helped to bring certain aspects of the game to my mind. Ultimate was the first Smash game I've really wanted to learn and get good at, so the systems and metas of past games usually flies over my head, which isn't to say I don't know anything about Sm4sh or Melee, just that I didn't play them. Since my top priority is learning the game, many of the issues he detailed aren't things I've noticed either watching top level play or playing the game myself, but nonetheless, they were systems that got me thinking about how the game works and why we play it the way we do. I can at least give Fudj that.

[@johnnyboy7777]

I think this was a great response. I watched this video myself before Esam made his response, and was pleasantly surprised to see this video come out. I agree with a lot of what both Esam and Fudj say in their videos, and Ultimately (pun intended) I think the main issue here is linguistics. Apart from very specific points that Esam more or less disagrees with entirely, he gave credit to the criticisms of the design/intuitiveness of certain features of Ultimate. As such, the title "The Competitive Failings" seems like a bit of a reach, as the competitive scene for Ultimate is pretty great (ignoring current pandemics). Regardless, I think that if the title is set aside, and the argument was presented differently, I personally think Fudj has a lot of legit criticisms here on how Ultimate (or more likely, a future Smash game) can recognize some of the current design flaws and make the game even more intuitive and easy to get into on a competitive level. That's not to say Ultimate is poorly designed/not intuitive as is, but considering the steps Smash devs have taken to try to make an experience that is better designed and more intuitive than previous smash games, voicing personal grievances with design choices is probably the best way to go. There's no harm in offering constructive criticism in order to try to make the game even better in the future. But again, Esam makes a great point about how that's not what the video was attempting to argue, and some points in Fudj's video are completely irrelevant to that argument whatsoever. TL;DR Both Esam and Fudj make good points. The argument was flawed, but the valid criticisms were still there. Civil discussion is good, don't be a dingus.

[@uchihajunior5648]

they fixed the buffering in airdodge, but not for everything else, try testing it by buffering stuff out of bowser's up-b, you'll see the roll buffering still happens as bad as before the airdodge buffering patch.

[@blazeneo7663]

24:42 OHHHHH so that's why you said you didn't want Melee Dash Dance in the game when Ultimate was first announced...........makes sense

[@eduardoosuna1995]

William Woods Dash dancing is in the game. And he didn’t say he didn’t want dash dancing in the game. He said he doesn’t wants melee’s dash dancing in that game. And I agree. I think dash dancing now is improved from melee. Fast characters don’t overwhelmed slow characters anymore.

[@eduardoosuna1995]

William Woods that is dash dancing

[@LeonCamero]

Dash dancing in ultimate leaves you open to attacks if you do it wrong. It's more like a set up to counter attacks than it is for good movement option like it was in melee.

[@57dmario30]

If someone is willing to compete, but doesn’t because of x, even if x is balanced, it has failed the competitive scene. If you dismiss the hitches that stop potential players, literally any mechanic is justifiable. RNG on hit? Tripping? A literal win button? Competitors should accept it as a possibility and play around it. It’s a fine mind set to have as a player, but it is functionally incorrect on a game design level and doesn’t function on a conversation on meta.

[@jesusnegrete6018]

The short hop jump mechanic was something that should never have been added in the first place. Anyone who played Brawl or Smash 4 and had tap jump on knows that using both tap jump and smash stick at the same time gave you a short hop aerial. If this was a mechanic that was catering towards casuals, then teaching them this in the direct woulda been way better than messing with the game's original mechanics that have been there since Brawl

[@fullysemiautomatic5618]

Not everyone uses c stick and tap jump tho so your points irrelevant

[@jesusnegrete6018]

@@fullysemiautomatic5618 well not everyone uses X or Y to jump, either and casuals are more likely to keep the default settings than pros are. That's pretty much fact. Also, they can still short hop by holding 2 jump buttons

[@Simon_E32]

I think fudj would have had a better reaction if the title was changed. "Changes/additions to smash ultimate" would have been more appropriate. It really boils down to "this game needs more options in terms of the buffer and general control"

[@tilt9808]

I think what he means by "competitive" is people playing it like a fighting game and not a party game, not problems specifically at high level

[@scarl2t]

Tilt You shouldnt be top 100 befpre you learn these mechanics

[@sahelanthropus-1777]

Most people that play online are going to learn these mechanics when they want to improve or can't keep hiding behind bullshit stages / rules and items.

[@tilt9808]

@@sahelanthropus-1777 I'm someone who plays the game on legal stages without items but doesn't take the game too seriously. I've all but dropped the game because playing it doesn't feel nearly as good as sm4sh and I don't think I'm alone. I could learn all this or I could pick up a better feeling fighting game

[@justice8718]

@Tilt So rivals of aether? m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZTKppScpcqfqpY

[@brenjinLDK]

Particularly regarding control and the buffer system, no game in the series has suffered from the clash between player control and intent like this before. You can get used to smash ultimate's buffer like you can get used to anything, it doesn't make it not shitty.

[@Hailstormful]

"No variety, everyone plays the same, stale meta..." Wait, Smash Ultimate, the game with 80 characters, from which over 50% can top 8 a major tournament?

[@__Xeese]

It's not the variety of characters that show up in tournament, which is definitely in abundance. It's the variety of playstyles found within each individual character. I dropped the game a month or so ago, but from what I recall, a number of characters I've gone up against felt super flow chart-y.

[@Hailstormful]

@@__Xeese Sadly linear, flowcharty play is a tendency that's enforced by the laggy online. Lower level players struggle to let go of this basic online tactic, and fail to develop.

[@__Xeese]

That’s understandable. I haven’t really attended any tournaments recently, so the surplus of online matches may have spoiled my view of the game

[@eltheji]

The point of buffed Nair: it comes out a lot if you try to dash->Shop aerial out of a grab. It counts the directional imput in your directional stick and just count the C-stick imput as pressing A.

[@Wiz99999]

The Maplestory music, so nostalgic

[@sham_noway]

regarding the different character playstyles for each top player of a character point, the best two jr mains (Ketchup, Young Eevey) have extremely polarizing playstyles. Ketchups is slower, more defensive, focused on being annoying with kart. Young Eevey is faster, more aggressive, taking away your zone and making you play his game. Even these wacko low tiers can have huge variety in playstyles

[@arnerademacker8548]

14:09 "Why would you not want to get used to this input system, you're playing this game competitively" Because most competitive games don't have that kind of weirdness? Tekken doesn't. Smash 4 doesn't (to an extent). Star Craft doesn't. Counter Strike doesn't. LoL doesn't. Competitive games in order to be good competitive games also just need to be good games. Yes there are things you need to get used to, but you shouldn't have to get used to awkward controls or counter intuitive controls just because. There is a reason all really good competitive games with a big esport scene also tend to have a massive casual scene, and that includes Smash Brothers by the way. If it wasn't this way, there would be no need to ever make decent control schemes for competitive games because people would play them anyway and "just get used to it", right?

[@croixfadas]

Thank you

[@jensmarino5954]

Arne Rademacker you kind of went against yourself with csgo. Just saying some competitions banned jump throw binds which you could say is counter intuitive

[@arnerademacker8548]

@@jensmarino5954 You mean a competitive game banned a custom script in a tournament environment? Shocking. What exactly does that have to do with the inputs of the game being counter intuitive?

[@lpfan4491]

hard to learn controls does not nessesarily mean counterintuitive controls

[@arnerademacker8548]

@@lpfan4491 True. But when I press a button I expect that button to do the same thing every time, or at the very least the same thing in the context of what's currently happening. Smash does not fulfill that paradigm.

[@mumblernumber7213]

On the Directional Air Dodge point, I remember getting a sick upset as Puff on a tourney vs a mario, and the sickest thing about that set wasn't how i broke his shield in the first 10 seconds, or the rests I got, it was how when I was fair training him, he airdodged in, which I knew he would do from a previous interaction, so I got a punish which made me win the set.

[@Sycholesent]

Hey, you remember when Little Mac was broken? Yeah me nethier.

[@LyfjaSSB]

I mean, he *is* broken but not in the traditional "this character has an answer to every option in the game" kind of way but rather, the "this character's design is outrageously bad and it limits them severely" kind of way.

[@ryanmarcus3970]

I do, it was just last Wednesday

[@ElCampeador99]

LyfjaSSB exactly, his recovery, aerial moves and air speed sucks. But literally everything else is strong. He’s fast, has plenty of strong moves that kill early, plus those moves have super armor, has very quick moves and has a huge comeback feature with KO punch. Imagine if the only legal stage was King of Fighters stage. Little Mac would be top tier in that case whereas everyone else is lesser.

[@princessdio3686]

​@@ElCampeador99 Fun fact: Little Mac's air speed is actually pretty good, tied with Mario and Inkling.

[@TheBigSad8247]

Yo. I remember those talks when he was first released in Smash 4. I mained him because I heard he was broken, and I love boxer characters. Even when he turned out to be shit, I was already too devotes to him to drop him. Still would like a decent recovery though...

[@GrayyisGayy]

One reason for buffering nair with cstick is that sometimes people put cstick before jump preforming an attack cancel nair and not a shorthop aerial. You can negate this by pressing jump first and then an aerial direction.

[@augustobs24]

My favourite part of this video is the Ellinia soundtrack from MapleStory. Man of culture

[@ThatOneScienceGuy]

I went from Melee to Ultimate and I had a very hard time with it but after much practice and getting used to how the game works I quite like it.

[@SnippyDoughnut]

In my opinion, you can tell when someone is being unreasonable, I would say this is the case at *some* points in fudj's video, like where he's reminiscing about smash 4's air dodge. *However* , that being said, if someone's complaining, then there's almost *definitely* an actual, underlying issue for which they are grieving. Just saying.

[@TGHunter]

Damn.. Just saying....

[@SnippyDoughnut]

@@TGHunter playin' or f'real?

[@joshangrian]

Sinow-Blue he’s just saying, that’s all. Just saying.

[@SnippyDoughnut]

@@joshangrian I don't think you're just saying, the point was that those who are complaining about the first video are being unreasonable, as there's no reason to complain, unless you simply have a problem with other people's opinions.

[@TGHunter]

@@SnippyDoughnut lol, i was agreeing with your comment, its just that you are so right that the "Just Saying" at the end was true af. So we just joke with the "just saying", cuz you said sounds just true facts... Just saying. :v

[@ExplodingTrujillo]

I don’t buffer a whole lotta things in a row so it’s really not that big of deal for me. Is there a lot of people that like to buffer there inputs before hand, I didn’t know this. However I agree that the online is awful the input lag kills it entirely.

[@YamashitaKoikeDS]

Ultimate isn't some hard game to understand; especially for players who grew up with Smash. Ultimate is a different game but it's objectively worse than 4 and Melee when you combine it's objectively inferior ground movement with every other change. Ultimate rejecting the level of player skill reflecting through ground movement is a large negative. Once you're limited in movement, you're limited in options and you can't make as many big brained plays. That's why there isn't many 3 stocks, Zero to Deaths nor reverse dash grabs seen in competitive Ultimate as opposed to previous games. You can say that as a competitor what you do is push the game to it's limits but simple design failure does make it a competitive failure. Of course if you play badly or play a bad character you will not do good. However, adapting in Ultimate is more often conforming to limitations rather than learning fundamentals or anything else. Zero, who had a 50 tournament win streak, made a comment similar to Fudj's where he can't even notice the difference in skill level because of things like movement being so rigid in this game. You can't fully flesh out your own play at this point because you're fighting to do basic things harder than you're fighting your opponent. In Smash 4, Nairo was able to actually adapt and reach a level that separated him from other ZSS'. In Ultimate, he has to play Palu because the game often exposes how linear she actually is as opposed to 4. It's the same thing with Larry trading Fox for Wolf, Void having Sheik on the back burner for a long time and Fatality now being open to having Mario as a secondary. Not saying they didn't have to correct themselves but these are all players who were awesome with their original characters and aren't nearly as good as they were before because of Ultimate itself. This game actually has a lower ceiling, but it's design constantly sandwiches players of all skill levels together. That's why with spacing here, you're always too close or too far away. Graphing movement becomes more of a chore if you aren't playing the most versatile(or simple) characters with low committal options. A limit to options means even more of a limit to viable characters and even they are still limited in their movement options. It's a problem because now to get to the top or even have fun, I am much more obligated to pick better characters on top of conforming to strict limitations. I remember last year I said that everyone would be playing Palu and Joker when the Meta Peaks; I stopped closely following the meta but today I see a comment by someone named Cyn saying the UK scene is full of Palu's. The buffer system is not the best and the game doesn't read inputs correctly all the time but I can deal with that. I'm not mad that body blocking or parrying are mechanics in the game now as well. But without things like Power-Shielding, neutral is an awkward momentum roller-coaster and often becomes the Ram analogy Fudj made. Zoner's can get away with spamming more because you need to know exactly when projectiles will be used way ahead of time to parry them. Power-Shield being frame 4 would've been fine in addition to having Parry but the game is too gimmicky to have Parry make sense by itself. That's why you also don't see that very often and you can count how many times you see it. When you're in the corner, it's always a risk to gain stage control anyway; but all you can do is wait now since you can't run through people and get a reverse dash grab. Many characters have bail out/stupid moves that can be adapted to but become worse when you realize that the majority of characters in the game are glass cannons now. That's the only way every character can receive better frame data or power buffs and be "good". In conclusion, people have to have stop dancing around Ultimate's problems. Not everyone who critique's the game sucks and are unable to adapt. We can say it's different all we want but it's not like they turned Ultimate into Tekken. It's still Smash and it's not hard to understand. Even when you play Ultimate how it's supposed to play, it falls apart because of simple things like not having good ground movement. Not saying if you go into comp that you shouldn't expect to adapt but SSBU will die faster because having to adapt to these changes is sucking the energy from people and not rewarding them equally. That's why you hear about people taking breaks from Smash more often and many players have been complaining about the game

[@justice8718]

I honestly think that if Ultimate doesn’t fix the goddamn movement, the stupid off stage shit, shields, and online, Smash-like games like Rivals of Aether are going to take more attention than Ultimate. Just look at one match of this: m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/oqHbXo1reLt1aMU This game here is less spammy, projectiles are not absurd, parries actually work against projectiles, and the movement options the character can take are incredibly high.

[@YamashitaKoikeDS]

@@justice8718 I'm not too familiar with RoA so I'm a little confused with what I'm seeing but I get you. I really thought about it and if they don't want Ultimate to die they have to bring back good ground movement along with Power-shield. Basically, the game is one sided by design more often rather than players creating one sided situations. This definitely affects casuals because the changes made are meant to aid casuals, not long time veterans. People become competitors because they're confident in their casual play and over time they'll start noticing these flaws. If they were only to bring back good movement then Zoners would be more OP since they would have more options and no power-shielding makes it even harder to get in. With only power-shield and no good ground movement, you can be reacted to even more easily on the ground and the matches just become a boring Power-shield fest. I really hope they fix the game but if not I'm waiting for Project NX to play competitively. I like the idea of Ultimate but these basic mistakes are unacceptable. Unless you play Versatile(or Simple) characters like Palu and Pikachu, are new to the scene or you are a low level player who wasn't good at microspacing and blocking hits to begin with, you will be upset that these changes are made.

[@blujay3639]

Honestly, there is one critique that I haven't found anybody mention (in any video, really). That critique is about how much false hype is promoted in this game. When I say fake hype, I don't mean that the game is really boring to watch/spectate, I mean that the game forces the suspense on you. For example, ultimate has a tremendous amount of hitlag on most, if not all of the hitboxes (if you don't know what hitlag is, it is the amount of frames that nothing happens and the game is basically in freeze-frame mode). Powerful hits have higher hitlag and most multihits have enough hitlag to make the move insufferable. Not only does this make the game more slow because it is baked into the experience, but it builds suspense. This kind of stuff can also be seen with the powerful blue hit effect on some moves. I'm not going to complain about the red screen on the final hit because that typically is not a mid-game experience. The suspense makes the game feel a lot more hype than it really is in my opinion (also the faster a game is, it usually is more hype because the spectator can't comprehend everything at once). I am by no means a really competitive player though

[@laggalot1012]

The blue background effect only triggers on the most powerful moves in the game, most of which you really have no right to land in high-level play anyway, like the Falcon Punch and a small handful of specific alternative cases. Realistically, it will almost never come into relevance. Which is of course why it is so hype when it does and the visual effect simply emphasizes that for the experience, even if it has no real functional purpose. I don't think it detracts much from the game at all and mostly just gives it some extra flair.

[@blujay3639]

@@laggalot1012 i was mostly meaning to talk about hitlag, which is way over the top in this game.

[@laggalot1012]

@@blujay3639 Oh, my mistake then. I suppose I can see why it might bother you, so fair enough.

[@AHGavInDaUSA]

Glad you’re critiquing this video. I watched his when it came out, and while I agreed with *some* things he said, most things he said I personally felt were being viewed through a poor lesser-informed lens. Thanks for the video Eric.

[@TheTheJoegrine]

The Neutral comment you made Esam is on point, a lot of people who only played smash games doesn't know how basic fighting game neutral works. EVERY FIGHTING GAME HAS IT. In addition, Smash 4 had so much rock paper scissors interactions that a lot of people in their mind think the interaction was better...but it wasn't....

[@oathkeeper27]

5:08 "It's consistent" "Yeah, but I don't like it." This actually made me think of CoD players playing Counter Strike for the first time. "Why can't I hit anything?" "You're firing for too long, you need to angle your aim to account for that gun's specific spread pattern." "Well that's dumb, my shots should just hit the center of my screen all of the time."

[@yabbadabbindude]

And they're right

[@HystericalHuntress]

Being a competitor and looking for ways to 'break' the game and such does not in any way excuse the smoothbrained decisions to have overlapping buffers for hold buffer and the incredibly (too) long 10 frame window, having a nonsensical priority system, having a short hop aerial macro that cannot be switched off and on top of ALL of this shit.. the C-Stick is a macro too so it's basically impossible to do an aerial without drifting in a direction slightly. C-Stick NAir is not an uncommon problem, getting the wrong move OOS because the game literally fights you on what it lets you input makes everything more difficult if not in some situations impossible to do by traditional means. Just because we want to be competitive doesn't mean we can't say that these are design failures from a competitive standpoint because they are literal barriers between the player and the character they control. It opens up new tech, sure, but it also makes certain things impossible to do. This game also has a pretty small list of tech compared to past Smash games. I would gladly give up shit like attack cancelling if it meant getting rid of some of the nonsensical design choices when it comes to control in this game, you can train yourself to be frame perfect and be way more consistent with that than you can with a system that is literally illogical. The path from Point A to Point B in this game is not at all clear when it comes to inputs and that is a problem. I think the worst person to make a response to this video is you, because you are about as-biased an Ultimate fanboy as they come. You literally never shut up about how much you love this game and you think just because you were half decent at Melee and older Smash games, it somehow lends credit to your opinions. Smash Ultimate is the worst competitive Smash game ever made, bar none. It can be competitive, sure, it clearly can be. That doesn't change the fact the game is chalk full of issues that go from bottom to top, the most egregious of which being the control problems. You can't simply excuse that because there are ways around it, your logic is piss poor here. I'll happily go back to Melee, P+, 64 and Rivals. This game is fucking whack and a lot of the people playing it have deluded themselves and drank the Koolaid. You people pretend this shit is okay, it isn't. That's not even getting into more nuanced problems about how this game feels like it has tossed the Smash identity in the trash. Every character plays to a list of a handful of archetypes and nobody truly feels unique anymore. You don't need to know 81 matchups to compete, you need to know 6-8 archetypes and maybe MU's for the top 5 characters. That is it. All of the combos and options this game has are canned and repetitive. There is very little freedom or expression in this game, every combo you do is a Sakurai combo and the DI is piss. The fact they also gave us neutered Melee movement options as a haha fakeout like fake dash dancing (aka foxtrotting back and forth) and a laggy, staling wavedash is just a slap in the face. This game could've been so great, but they flushed it down the fucking toilet. But if you enjoy this shit, for real, by all means. I do find it somewhat telling the characters you like in Melee are mid tiers and the character you play in all other Smash games is a basically universal top/high tier that's always super viable. It almost makes you think that the reason you love this mess of a game so much is because your character is fucking busted and carries you.

[@LettuceGod1]

I literally had no clue it was even possible to get nair with c-stick. Hi the he’ll do you do that? Or even discover that?

[@tha-fresherson]

Jack Hartman By accident. If you flick the c-stick and let it go fast enough while you short hop, by the time the move comes out the game will register it as you wanting a nair. It's really hard to do with the normal controls, but if you bind jump to a shoulder button for instance, it's possible to execute consistently. You essentially have to be flicking c-stick the same time you jump as though you were doing a macro short-hop aerial. Obviously not ideal for normally doing nairs, but a pain when trying to do anything else, if you're not careful of course.

[@LettuceGod1]

Fresherson yeah if I didn’t watch this video I would probably never know about that. That’s weird, but not something to complain about unless ur bad. Lol

[@magicggst]

flick down on the c stick then jump. Have fun

[@MerryBlind]

Fresherson Yeah only happens to me when doing short hops with my jump trigger, but even then it happens very rarely, and even doing it on purpose is difficult.

[@elektrikProStats]

I actually really appreciate this video, it was super insightful for me. Not only that, but I really gave me some good things to think about/implement in my practice. I love ult but I think you hit it head on when saying some people havent adapted to playing ult

[@BL3446]

I honestly love that you can boil down most of Esam's points to "Because you are bad at the game and need to practice/learn." Because it is 100% right. People who say a game "isn't competitive" just means they aren't good at it. Anything can be competitive. Take any real world or video game, and I bet you can find someone passionate enough to compete at it.

[@ryanrusch8644]

Animal crossing Stalk market be like

[@Mr_ViPR]

Imo seems kinda hung up on semantics. Like everything has a work around but I get that but it does raise eyebrows when things that shouldn’t need work arounds require obtuse actions for simple tasks. Basic actions should feel intuitive and consistent.

[@mintyfresh122]

Hell, technoblade takes potato farming competitively

[@manligi9701]

You, myself and Pooch literally have the same mindset as to who's the best designed top tier of all time which is Brawl Marth. Glad people are starting to see the light

[@imESAM]

Brawl Marth the god

[@manligi9701]

@@imESAM Yee. Seeing French Leon and classic Mr. R as an aspiring player was a treat. Marth has the 2nd most tourney winnings (in terms of money wise, not placement) so kinda plays into the fact that people SHOULD'VE recognized what he represents as the most f-air top tier, but alas, Brawls meta died right before the rise of Mexico Fox army and Marth started placing... Sorry for the tangent, but Brawl history and meta is so fascinating to me

[@BoneyGaf]

Like an actual competitive failing would be tripping in brawl or having characters that are just way beyond the rest like meta knight or bayo

[@flamo2666]

or I don’t know... *rage and smash 4 bayo*

[@lokouba]

Smash Ultimate Spotdodge

[@saricubra2867]

The problem with the buffer systems is that these modern games (also includes smash) have input lag. You will never have a game that feels as responsive like Smash 64 or Melee, so i don't take any game after Melee seriously, trust me, every smash game after Melee is a mess from a competitive standpoint simply by taking the unresponsive controls which gets worse with each Smash game. Buffer systems are included to try to hide the input lag, so what happens is that you have bad code. This doesn't make sense because hardware nowadays is very powerful or there is a lot of jank in the programming.

[@cordeliafrey9950]

I think something important is that from a competitive standpoint your points are valid but from a game design standpoint I agree with fudj. If you are set on playing the game these things are things you need to go around. The issue is that a lot of fudj's points are things that would help with people being frustrated at the game and not burning out which is a serious issue. I think one snag you had with his video was the title, but if you think about it, if I was to choose a competitive fighting game to play, something like the controls is a huge part of that choice.

[@nofatchxplzthx]

it shouldnt be difficult to do any single inputs in any fighting game. players should be able to do full hop and short hops consistently without issues. It should be up to nintendo to figure out how to fix it. Add a second jump button or make it easier to do full hops. People shouldnt have to practice short hopping FFS,

[@imESAM]

Idk man I do them easily all the time LOL

[@KeitaroTime]

Very informative video, good watch

[@imESAM]

Huhey, thanks