How Steve Broke Smash Ultimate - A Character Analysis

[@dinosaurusrex1482]

Why does Steve get to keep his inventory after a ko when the default setting in Minecraft is keep inventory off?

[@thunderd7904]

The devs were noobs and not only played with it on, but just played in creative mode

[@MinnowTF]

I always thought of it as “what materials should I use to make tools now, and what should I leave in my chest in case I die”

[@mrmediocre848]

​@@MinnowTFexcept there's no thinking about storing items before dying, and you even gain material when respawning.

[@ivrydice0954]

We all know Smash Players play with it on.

[@kwisowofer9872]

THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN SAYING

[@dabiskitt]

I’ve always hated how the magma block on Steve’s up smash is bigger than the rest of his blocks. All blocks should be the same size

[@bluerobin7051]

You should consider it a body breaking thing, like Wario's fist growing massive for his forward smash. It makes the movie look better by making it more distinct.

[@abcrasshadow9341]

Your opinion is wrong ​@@bluerobin7051. It makes the move stronger for no reason.

[@shellpoptheepicswordmaster755]

But it's not part of Steve, it's a block, and blocks don't change size

[@bluerobin7051]

@@shellpoptheepicswordmaster755 The game design principle is the same.

[@Capris9x]

*whisper* DLC...

[@theonewhodoesrants]

the unfortunate part of attempting banning characters in smash is that if they don't have a lot of top level rep, people won't think the character is a problem. but if they are everywhere at top level (see brawl and s4), then they can't get banned because many top players will refuse to attend tournaments their character is banned at

[@youvegot]

also the way that he was banned in some areas and not others only led to people from steve banned states thinking he was even more busted when they didnt know how to fight steves in non banned states/majors. it was a negative feedback loop for people banning him

[@HellCat_Kenny]

Smash players have always been babies about this sort of thing. Ban convos never take years in other games, most of the time at least.

[@anjokii]

@@HellCat_KennyI'm new to fighting games. Do you mean other games ban characters much earlier than a few years after their release? As in, the character would be clearly bannable within the first month?

[@sharmakefarah2064]

​@@anjokiiYes, that's what it means.

[@SomeOtherTroper]

@@anjokii Or within a week of someone figuring out a reliable infinite 100->0 combo on a new DLC character. That's what happened to Kokonoe in Blazblue: she was really pushed, but so is almost every character in that game. It took some time, maybe more than a month after her release, until someone discovered she had an airtight infinite combo (which is NOT something anyone in that game is supposed to have), and she was banned within a week. She eventually got patched down to just being 'pushed', which is fine, and was promptly unbanned. Notably, it didn't take something like a number of high profile tournaments to "get enough evidence that this character is warping the metagame": somebody posted a youtube video showing off the infinite and how to do it, and nearly everybody playing Blazblue said "nope, that shouldn't be a thing, kick the catgirl out".

[@walkingpokedex8478]

I like how the history in tournaments basically went: "Okay, Steve looks a little broken, but it could just be good players." "Okay, someone new won another tournament, but it could still just be a hidden gem of a player" "Okay, what the fuck."

[@SioxerNikita]

Because that is how statistics work... Listen here, these are a FEW of the variables you need to control for: The strength of the player playing Steve The strength of the player playing the opponent The "counterness" between the two characters. Is the opponent's character at an inherent disadvantage, and should they have picked different? The knowledge that the opponent has playing against Steve. Plenty of games have had "Oh, banned/nerfed/rebalanced because strong", later realizing it was more people didn't know how to play against them... rather than the character/unit was actually being strong. Players also tend to have strong emotional reactions to things like this, so they might be heavily overexaggerating the actual imbalance, without even knowing it.

[@zy3177]

​@@SioxerNikita but steve is literally just actually in need of a ban lol

[@fakeletobr730]

@@zy3177 actually, is not a ban, is more or less knowing how to counter it, the current steve is not a literal completly optimized, because if it was, it would be able to use and get s that it normally wouldnt get and also able to do true combos i think, the current steve is strong clearly, is a character that is conceptually different in a way that it changes how advantage and danger works, a way to solve it would to either make the grind longer, the hitbox a little nerfed and the s through placing blocks or moving animation took out, the moves are strong but are not on the level where you cant dogde or predict, but the hitbox, the time to grind and the optimal s possible to get are op. thats how i see it after the whole video, i never played this game.

[@zy3177]

@@fakeletobr730 I think you're a child due to how poorly you typed this up but steve is not well balanced, look at any other fighting game.

[@SteveTheNam]

​@@fakeletobr730 I love you completely missed the entre video to make this comment

[@maskofthedragon]

Steve mains suppressed their power levels until after the final balance patch

[@dragnjames2190]

We'll be seeing much worse suppressed shit once Ult is no longer the current game and it's only played at Smash Con.

[@Cashbans]

Question if you to rework or rebalance Steve how would you do it

[@dragnjames2190]

@@Cashbans 1. INCREASE ENDLAG WHEN STEVE JUMPS OUT OF MINECRAFT. Ideally from 6 to 30 frames of endlag. Whether it be by an opponents attack or Steve himself jumping out, his current iteration is fucking ridiculous. 6 frames of endlag for his jump out of minecart and then he can do anything he wants. That is absolutely ludicrous and let's him bail out at any time to be safe. It's so ridiculous that Steve is able to "climb" lava slopes in custom maps because he can act so soon after getting minecart destroyed. 2. Cut the HP of Steve's blocks in half across the board. Have Wood/Dirt Blocks break immediately if hit from below so that recoveries with a hitbox will atleast have a chance to recover against it. 3. Tighten/Restrict the angles that Steve can recover from with Eltrya. There's no reason why he should be able to spam minecart for jumps and then up b to recover from the bottom of the screen with his borked glide angle. Ideally, tweak the angles to be more akin to Yoshi's egg toss or Corrin's up b. 20°-90°. Just these 3 changes alone would do wonders for him and make him less obnoxious. 4. Gut his weight. He's a top tier? GUT his weight. 92 -> 85. Smash weight is more akin to traditional fighting game health anyways with little regard for canonical weight. So if the best characters are doing too well? An easy way to nerf them without removing tools in their kit is to make them harder to utilize. The Smash devs did it a bit in Smash 4 but it was barely noticeable numbers like 84->83. Decrease the weight of the top characters by atleast 5 units depending on their standing in the meta.

[@Cashbans]

@dragnjames2190 That's a lot, there good balance ideas as they still keep his indenty alive. as I have played balance mods that remove his blocks all together

[@dragnjames2190]

@@Cashbans Yeah, I'm not too big of a fan of some balance mods that blatantly carpet bomb the "boring" top tiers with nerfs while buffing some borderline characters to super obnoxious top tier status. It's very easy to tell when the balance team has a particular bias lol.

[@SonicTheCutehog]

He literally broke Ultimate. Ice physics don't work anymore and the lava in Super Mario Maker sometimes doesn't hurt you starting with the Steve update.

[@larrydupp3988]

Seriously? I havent heard of this before but I havent played any custom/wack stages in awhile

[@halloweenpeachy]

@@larrydupp3988The ice in other stages still works (including customs). Its just the Super Mario Maker Ice that Steve broke.

[@MKDeon]

It doesn’t matter cuz they’re not viable stages

[@kalesmash1339]

@@MKDeon people play the game outside of tournaments

[@HelterwithoutSkelter]

​@@MKDeon its a damn party game fym "not viable stage"

[@PerkyPyra]

5:40 ...A DIAMOND in the rough, a GOLD medalist... whose IRON grasp seems unyielding. A character that WOOD leave a profound mark on the meta. I see what you did there, you DIRTy scoundrel...

[@TheRedStinger82]

Let's just be grateful that Steve doesn't have Netherite… 💀

[@LloydTheZephyrian]

He should be STONEd for his crimes.

[@koiyune]

​​@@LloydTheZephyrian STONEing is when people throw rocks at you until you die im NETHER making that joke again

[@themajesticpineapple4]

I guess it really is set in STONE now...

[@LloydTheZephyrian]

@@koiyune Guess I'm just NETHERITE about these puns. I think we should put an END to this so it doesn't keep DRAGON on.

[@hi-i-am-atan]

i think the wildest thing this illustrates is just how much of steve's overwhelming powerful comes from _exceeding_ tiny details. like, the blocks' hurtbox, the way blocks have differing and p. significant hp, blocks giving no-impact landing, stages being lax with the red zones on their blockgrid, minecart's hurtbox extending so far up and being invulnerable at startup, minecart's grab hitbox not sharing a hit cooldown with its impact hitbox, anvil's hitbox having the exact opposite problem as block's hurtbox, elytra's goddamn _black hole_ hands, elytra's free firework rocket, what resources steve starts and respawns with, and the general trend of his resource costs ( other than tnt ) being pretty damn lenient like, it's a cute detail that stone blocks last longer than dirt blocks, but is it really necessary when dirt blocks are already as durable as they are? iron is one thing, since that means you have _no_ other blocks and burning through has far more significant ramifications, but the miscellaneous blocks really don't gain anything but "a cute detail" from being mechanically distinct. speaking of iron, does he really need to start with _three?_ does he really need to keep it after dying, except also if he used it all up, he gets an _extra_ three to immediately play with? i mean honestly i don't mind him respawning with like one or two units of it ( as, like, both the floor _and_ ceiling; convert lost iron to stone if you want, he just shouldn't be able to respawn with a _full bar_ ) since respawn disadvantage is a bitch and especially for a character with his physics, getting a single free anvil or minecart to mix up his landing or to save for their importance in his offense ain't all that unreasonable. if anything, it's what he _starts_ with that's more egregious, because the comparison to charge moves isn't exactly inaccurate, and i mean ... imagine if samus could store multiple charge shots, _and she _*_started with three_* i'm pretty confident that you could adjust all these smaller details while keeping all of steve's more overt strengths untouched and his performance would just _plummet._ like, not from the higher tiers, no those overt strengths are still A Lot, but his perch as the game-warping toppest tier makes any fall far from insignificant

[@Matanumi]

Well shit look at what they did with joker....

[@mahmud7645]

@@Matanumiwhy so serious

[@iSickle_]

remember when steve was a meme character remember when microsoft owning minecraft made his inclusion impossible remember when everyone laughed at his reveal trailer remember when steve broke the internet now everyone is terrified. sakurai's dedication to keeping him true to the source has doomed everyone.

[@koathekid8255]

You mocked a god and have been punished for your hubris

[@Tobiazinth]

I mean, minecraft was on switch with mario dlc so it wasnt impossible

[@bellslimes]

@@Tobiazinthit was a joke, we all knew it could happen but nobody thought it actually would happen

[@tumultoustortellini]

If he was true to source, he wouldn't be able to place blocks or minecart in the air. Maybe he should have had more dedication...

[@paancadeunwilled6656]

​@@tumultoustortellini with commands, anything is possible in minecraft tbh

[@burbusburbus8782]

I think the weirdest thing is i look at almost everything steve does, and go "yeah, he can do that in minecraft". Like, aside from placing blocks mid-air, and minecart having a hitbox instead of just being a grab, this might be one of the most faithful characters in smash history

[@youvegot]

only thing that wouldve made it better is if his tech was a water clutch or something tbh

[@goldenhorde6944]

One of my favorite details in that regard is that he places his lava bucket offset by a single block, allowing him to stand in the corner of the cross shape that it makes due to MC's weird fluid physics.

[@strateupgamr7]

I think the best explanation for floating blocks is that, oh, Smash council didn't want Steve wandering off in his 3d landscape so they forced him in with barrier blocks. What they did not account for is Steve's bullshit.

[@doodoo2065]

Acshually 🤓: * Steve can mine all types of ores from the same spot * All ores are melted automatically * Steve can make sand act like dirt * He can mine cobblestone and place stone instead for some reason * He can then use that same stone to make stone tools that can only be made with cobblestone as far as i know (seriously, why did they even do this) * He can blow up a tnt right below him and not receive any damage * Apparently he can start with an inventory? He doesnt lose it nor does he keep it, he only keeps special items and some get reset * He can summon oversized blocks (what is that magma block) This was supposed to be a joke comment but the more i thought about it the more i realized how much i dont really like the way they did steve in smash lol

[@burbusburbus8782]

@@doodoo2065 and as a joke response, I rebuttle Acktually 🤓: *Dig down in Minecraft, you'll run into a variety of tools *For the TNT, you can block damage with shield. Which is the input you use to dodge. *For the inventory, that is technically possible through "starting chest" Everything else is moreso streamlined aside from the sand and the magma block

[@LeviAuren]

As a robin enthusiast, I imagine Steve to be if Levin sword had separate durabilities for each direction. And could be restored by shielding for 1 second

[@neog8029]

Fellow Robin enjoyer. Now I'm mad at the justified comparison of if Robin could repair Levin and tomes during downtime.

[@HuneeBruh]

And didn’t lose charge unless you actually hit

[@unconcernedsalad2]

from top players discussions (of robin) it sounds like even if this all was true, robin still wouldn’t be near steve’s power level (for … various reasons i have no time to explain here in a youtube comment section)

[@borkbork9541]

'You're basically better off not interacting with it' - every other move on steve

[@crazykhespar8487]

When the best option against a character is to only not interact (or to concede), its a pretty good character.

[@leaffinite2001]

​@crazykhespar8487 or pretty awful depending on how you look at it lol

[@hillbillypowpow]

​@@crazykhespar8487if the best way to play against a character is not interacting then they are an awful character

[@morphstarchangeling8024]

It doesn't help that the legal stages just so happen to give Steve his best tables for mining resources quickly.

[@laytonjr6601]

You think that mining slower but only getting iron is worse?

[@nothingherezero7182]

​@@laytonjr6601 yes he can't use side b

[@SVD63Ninja]

@@nothingherezero7182dude,iron is what he needs to use side b. You'd need a stone or wood focused stage to really screw him over since it eats his axe or pickaxe while also being slower to get good ores.

[@nothingherezero7182]

@@SVD63Ninja the rails are what matter more than the iron you really don't understand that ?

[@SVD63Ninja]

@@nothingherezero7182 side b in the air and you'll minimize the amount of rails you need. The fact that it's garunteed iron does so much more since it garuntees you'll have the healthiest block the whole game,almost always have anvils and carts,and if you can't craft gold or diamond you can always craft iron tools. The only time it becomes a problem is in making tnt,which eats up alot of blocks.

[@dan_the_swag_man6937]

It feels like they just straight up did not consider competitive play with this guy because steve is actually really fun and kinda reasonable to play against with friends in a casual setting. but the second you start to take the game seriously he's just the worst.

[@mrbister8714]

I really appreciate the fact that you didn’t just mindlessly slam Steve for being overpowered, but also go into HOW this character ended up in this state in the first place. It feels like a lot of people forget that Steve wasn’t considered a super broken “must nerf” character until a long while after his release. Edit: Just finished the video and God it is so refreshing to see such an overall optimistic Smash video considering how most of the community behaves.

[@ggnicklu]

This channel has always been a diamond in the rough of this community for me since Smash 4. A healthy positive attitude, critical and informative videos with well researched and detailed aspects

[@Warby1900]

For me I was saying since day 1 having a bunch of either intangible, nearly intangible and disjointed moves made him top tier and legit everyone laughed at me. But game and watch has proved that these type of janky disjoints are just inherently strong. Look where we ended up so when people finally started coming round to him actually being broken it felt like i wasn’t the insane one. Idk why people didn’t think it would be broken to inherently change the way the entire game is played for every single cast member on top of some already absurd moves and mechanics. I genuinely regretted steve getting into smash, not because he didn’t deserve a spot but because he sucked the life out of the game and pulled a bayonetta, meta knight, ice climbers type of problem and just makes the game not fun to interact with as every interaction you do is a losing one. The game became less about how much you can punish a mistake and instead became about how can you minimise an inevitable trade which just isn’t fun to know that even if they make a mistake and you play perfectly you are still only neutral coming out of the interaction. Tl;dr -I called it

[@paulakroy2635]

@@Warby1900I’m going to be real how. A bunch of top players called him mid tier.

[@strangejune]

To be fair, he didn't look like he was good at brawling. And that's because he isn't. If you removed block, he probably *would* be a mid tier. People just didn't understand how much advantage block gave inherently.

[@MagnaLynx21]

People in the NA scene just want Ultimate to die, I swear they hate the game. This video really is refreshing.

[@BainesMkII]

When animating a character, there are reasons to want to shift or not shift the root bone position on a move-by-move basis. The problem, as always, is Steve. Presumably the devs simply decided that Anvil's "weird" interactions just weren't important enough to warrant anything more than the simplest solution. Which might have been okay if the move wasn't arguably already too effective, and wasn't part of the abundance of a certainly too effective character.

[@ggnicklu]

Well said!

[@hi-i-am-atan]

they're also not interactions unique to anvil, anvil is just uniquely capable of generating the jankier results and taking advantage of 'em, or at least it's ( effectively ) unique in a no-items setting. unsurprisingly, a lot of explosions also use side-based knockback, as do a fair few other drop attacks like dedede's up special. you just don't exactly find the same combination of power and speed on moves with this property without something like a bob-omb, which only barely and rarely make an appearance in competitive

[@lasercraft32]

YES, finally someone gets it... I _hate_ how you have to mash in order to escape grabs, especially the minecart! Its just a bad design. It hurts your hand, it damages your controller, and is just extremely frustrating.

[@MasterKnightDH]

Anything forcing button mashing should have involved being able to hold buttons to mash out at a slightly slower pace than an above average faster person mashing the button would. Being forced to button mash is only "immersive" in an unhealthy sense. Zap that mess of a requirement.

[@justice8718]

Game design that damages your properties is a horrible concept.

[@xolotltolox7626]

Also mashing is awful, because most of the time it means you'll also end uo buffering something, usually an Up-B or an airdodge

[@lasercraft32]

@@xolotltolox7626 Yeah. It really sucks...

[@NovaNyst]

especially when you consider how notoriously fragile the joycons are lmao. I know a lot of people don't even use them but just as many do and a lot of those don't have much option in that regard

[@KingObliv]

this was the best "Steve is broken" video you were descriptive, reasonable, and not overly negative

[@tfthief4931]

Put simply, it's not so much that any singular thing is absolutely game breaking (although placing blocks and mining gets very close to that) but rather that THE ENTIRETY of his kit with context is just absurdly strong. He genuinely has the tools to handle every single situation. He has 0 real downsides. He is the objective best character in the entire game. A really frustrating fun fact: An unoptimized Steve combo does more damage than a perfect Ganondorf opening (down air, grab, dash forward nair)

[@KingObliv]

@@tfthief4931 he doesn't really have tools to deal with swords that well due to his poor mobility, range, and how they ruin everything that makes him good (other than combos) and he has no tools for camping other than just not being behind Sonic there is no "objective" best character most top tiers can easily get a higher damage combo than Ganondorf

[@tfthief4931]

@@KingObliv 1.) He has a swordie range with disjointed aerials, he has his forward-aerial-jab, a move UNIQUE to Steve specifically which combos into forward air, and he doesn't need to approach swordies, which is their entire fundamental game plan. To keep you out. He wins by existing. 2.) "He has no tools for camping" are you a fucking toddler? He has blocks, he has anvil, he has minecart. He is literally the BEST camping character in the entire game. 3.) Yes there is an "objective" best character and you're a genuine moron if you don't think so. Every top tier has potentially higher damage potential than Ganondorf (that's why their top tier) but how many of those characters can start a 70% combo with a frame 5 up tilt that can be spammed, is safe on shield, and can be used while moving left and right? Watch the actual video lil bro and then come back to me after you've learned something.

[@tfthief4931]

@@KingObliv tell me you've never fought a mid to high level game of smash without telling me you've never fought a mid to high level game of smash

[@KingObliv]

@@tfthief4931 don't call ne a fucking toddler for pointing out genuine pride with the character jesus christ who pissed in your cereal

[@troykv96]

Huh, in a way, Steve was destined to be the best character in the game, because everything that made him overpower wasn't fully explored until the game development ended. He was too complicated, too clunky, too slow to get results early on, but there was a lot of potential, but unlike "Mr. Potential"... this actually ended up be a reality. When people finished cooking this messy recipe, the most disastrously beautiful dish was discovered.

[@somerandomdiamond7345]

...Mr.. Mr Potential.. Potential man?

[@TomoLamp]

​@@somerandomdiamond7345with this treasure i summon

[@Haganeren]

@@somerandomdiamond7345 I suppose he is talking about shulk

[@Netami-cn6jr]

​@@Haganeren no hes talking about bumgumi

[@boogsss2]

Yeah but covid happened

[@slimecat1197]

In spite of his flaws, I still respect the hell out of the smash bros developers for the sheer ambition of his character. Adding features onto EVERY stage to accommodate ONE character is still so insane to me.

[@awesomegaymer5786]

Steve really feels like the developers loved him and wanted to push the absolute limits of what was possible in smash

[@Inksploded]

I dont fuck dlc 2

[@greg-un7bk]

@@awesomegaymer5786 While we can agree he's not balanced, he is really cool and the devs really wanted people to think so as well :)

[@hillbillypowpow]

Yeah it's like watching someone do a backflip before punching you in the mouth. It's more impressive but it still hurts

[@Chaud31423]

Smash 4 Cloud had the same "You're in disadvantage if you're not approaching me" with Limit. And you know what they did? Mafe sure it decayed when it's full.

[@100organicfreshmemes5]

They had to balance it out a bit once Cloud came with the game for free. Gotta incentivize buying DLC privilege somehow.

[@paulakroy2635]

@@100organicfreshmemes5I don’t think dlc privelage is a thing as much as gimmick are hard to balance and dlc characters happen past balance patches

[@maxwellhesher1790]

@@paulakroy2635It just so happens that every character who desperately needed balancing came out in a DLC bar meta knight. Real coincidence, nothing Nintendo could’ve done. I mean it’s not like they could reduce the effectiveness of characters that people paid money for specifically… Oh hold on, that’s exactly what they could do. Although for aforementioned monetary reasons and the fact it doesn’t generate sales, Nintendo doesn’t care.

[@MrTNT49]

Except that Steve can make his advantage EVEN BIGGER by just mining more. He talked about it in the video

[@paulakroy2635]

@@maxwellhesher1790yes. Sonic is considered extremely strong in ultimate for example, top 5. Also I have yet to meet a single who bought the dlc character for strength lmao. Fighters pass 1 has strong but balanced character.

[@gbx4858]

I never understood why they let Steve place blocks in mid-air when thats not how he plays in Minecraft. I feel like if they were to nerf him, they should at least make him only place blocks connected to the ground, wall, ceiling, or to another block. Great video overall, glad to see you back!

[@Eval999]

If it hadn't turned out so busted overall, floating blocks could actually be really cool. Maybe make them cost more or something.

[@MizunoKetsuban]

Clearly it's because the 2D nature of the game added invisible walls to his sides and that's what the blocks are attaching to

[@ivrydice0954]

It's because being faithful comes 2nd to character feel. It's not faithful to make Steve's block decay overtime and faster when standing on it or limit him to 8 blocks at a time, but it's 100% better that way.

[@tapatorta]

Timestamp every time pochu appears onscreen

[@mrbister8714]

I like the aerial block places, it’s not accurate to Minecraft but I think it’s more interesting and freeform than if he could only place blocks on the ground. Not to mention the wall™ wouldn’t go anywhere if you got rid of aerial blocks

[@whitefox411-gamer7]

The moment the gameplay trailer shown that Steve's minecart attack was a projectile (mostly) risk free grab that could go off stage, I knew this character would at minimal, be consitered the most annoying Smash Bros character. That, by itself, is nuts. Imagine the Kirby eating a player then jumping off the edge mechanic, but Kirby doesn't lose a stalk.

[@ADerpyZelda]

The fact that you had to talk for 24 minutes about how Steve holding the B button is insanely broken says a lot I think, I’m just convinced that Sakurai just gets bored at the end of every smash dev cycle and adds a blatantly overtuned character for fun

[@JacobSC_]

Steve seems like a character that they were gonna give one or two advantages out of a list of five, but some careless intern accidentally enabled all the advantages

[@paulakroy2635]

I really dislike this take. Hindsight is 20/20 when it comes to Steve. Remember when Izaw put out a video calling Steve the worst character. I don’t think the devs could have predicted how strong Steve would be

[@mrbister8714]

It’s funny because theoretically Steve has a ton of weaknesses, it’s just his kit came together to make those weaknesses not matter unless you breathe down his neck hard enough to deplete him of iron

[@nascour5991]

yeah right they just didn't care cus they hate smash

[@JacobSC_]

@@nascour5991 I should probably mention that I was joking

[@nascour5991]

@@JacobSC_ oh well that isn't really that obvious

[@shadowwalker2336]

As a professional software engineer, I can actually offer some insight as to why there is a seemingly arbitrary line in the sand of when balance patches stopped and why they didn't just go back later and fix things. It's money. At some point, a decision was made that that was all the content they wanted to put into the game, and they didn't want to keep paying devs to work on a project they were done adding content for. They wanted those devs to go work on other projects or whatever business reason was decided. While it's theoretically possible to go back to a project to add more patches or content, the reality is that it's not financially practical. Let's say that there are 5 devs, 10 qa/playtesters, and 5 business folks that are needed to make an update for Smash. Given that it's been a while since any content has been made, the devs would need some amount of time to relearn the codebase and the business team would need to do some research to decide what direction to take in order to more appropriately balance the game. In a perfect world that probably takes 2 weeks, and they haven't even really touched the code. Assuming the dev team was highly efficient, maybe it takes them 2 weeks to make the initial code changes so the testing team can go at it. Assuming they didn't get everything perfectly right on their first pass, let's say it takes 4 weeks for testing, feedback, and testing again to make sure everything is good. So we've got a team of 20 people working for 2 months to make a balance patch to fix the issues. Let's say on average, each of those members makes 100K USD/year (they probably don't all make that much, but there would probably be a lot more than 20 people working on a AAA game). Just to pay for those 2 months of work we're talking ~300-350K USD. So with lowball people working on the team, very optimistic timeline for completing the work, and very average salary estimate that's the kind of price estimate you're looking at to do the work.

[@lucipo_]

So you're saying we can get a Steve nerf if we crowd fund $350k for an update

[@a.a5983]

@@lucipo_Nintendo will take the 350 and end up nerfing Dr Mario or some shit

[@CharlotteMimic]

38:35 Really funny to me that this *projectile command grab* also has bonus backup hitboxes to strike aerial opponents. Y'know, jumping. The way you're supposed to avoid command grabs.

[@hi-i-am-atan]

oh, those aren't backup strike hitboxes for covering jumps it already grabs jumping opponents, so the strike hitboxes are just there if the grab misses or if there's someone else for the minecart to run over after it's already grabbed someone

[@GoonCommander]

@@hi-i-am-atan It definitely does not that's just a lie.

[@hi-i-am-atan]

@@GoonCommander what's with the air-only grabbox, then

[@GoonCommander]

@@hi-i-am-atan there literally just isn't one. there's a single grab box and it's ground only. On the site labled "Smash Ultimate Data Viewer" there's a section under "Trolley" with a search box for the grounded grab and a search box that's is "air only" but the parameters for setting it up aren't the same as the grab and the dimensions match what is the minecarts hurtbox in hitbox viewers of training mode modpacks

[@GoonCommander]

For some reason my last reply is gone but in summary, Literally just test it yourself, it has only one grabbox and it's ground only. Smash Ultimate data viewer says there are two search boxes, one is the grab, the other's dimensions match the minecarts hurtbox.

[@ChampionLink]

The fucked up part about footstool dair oos is that Steve is by far the easiest to do this tech with due to his short hop height. Steve players can literally just mash their jump button and get it super consistently.

[@Mikairium]

so once again steve's weakness becomes his strength 💀

[@silvershield9217]

3:36 Slight correction, the second fighter pass was announced during Terrys announcement stream, Banjos announcement stream was on E3 with Hero before it. Edit: I got the announcement of FP2 wrong, it wasn't Byleths, at that presentation it was revealed that the second FP was going to include 6 characters instead of 5.

[@danieldavid3766]

*Terry’s announcement direct.

[@silvershield9217]

@@danieldavid3766 oh yeah, I forgot about that Nintendo direct. So it was in Byleths presentation that an extra character was getting added at the second fighter pass

[@silvershield9217]

​@@danieldavid3766I edited my comment, thanks. At both streams we knew something about the second FP.

[@gusgarrison9211]

I remember being at Smashcon 2022 and seeing audience members walk out during matches when Steve was on-screen. Shit was crazy

[@Zal_TWasTaken]

Angry grown man being mad about a video game

[@safe6278]

​@@Zal_TWasTaken in other news: local child understands nothing

[@freddiesimmons1394]

​@@Zal_TWasTakenit's called caring. Sheesh

[@commscan314]

@@Zal_TWasTaken It's called not finding the game fun to watch when a certain character is in play and leaving to go do something one finds more fun.

[@zonesquestiloveunderworld]

​@@Zal_TWasTakenOh look how cool this guy is, he's apathetic towards everything because not caring is cool for some imbecilic reason!

[@grfrjiglstan]

It seems like everything overpowered about Steve could be balanced by just reducing the speed at which he can mine blocks. Fewer dirt blocks to stall and wall with, less iron for mine cart and anvil, and weaker weapons to up tilt with.

[@abcrasshadow9341]

This is the simplest change that would have massive ramifications. It is essentially a monkeys paw fix, because if you don't do it enough he just camps even harder than now, but if you do it too much then it removes all competitive viability (as weird as that is to say).

[@fishyfishyfishy500akabs8]

@@abcrasshadow9341 tbh I’d rather Steve be unviable competitively in a similar vein to Little Mac than have to deal with Steve being everywhere dear fkin god. There’s a reason why Mac’s design is f’ed up and why we can’t make mac better without fundamentally changing the character’s design philosophy

[@Zal_TWasTaken]

@@fishyfishyfishy500akabs8 the devs wouldn't want that, they worked 6 months just for this one character to be in the game

[@santiagomarin1882]

I agree: The problem with Steve is that everything he has is way too cheap

[@augustday9483]

Put a lower cap on how many resources he can gather, so he can't camp endlessly to gain significant advantage. Reduce block hp and fix the inaccurate hitboxes. Fix the blocks eating projectiles without taking damage. I'd start with that, see if he's still broken, then continue with nerfs as necessary.

[@caoinhnamkhanh2795]

the size for the blocks' hurtbox is stupid, i KNEW it was smaller than it looked...

[@cyanofelis]

I hate all hitboxes and hurtboxes that don't match up with the visuals.

[@big_numbers]

@@cyanofelisGeometry dash moment

[@mxyzptplk]

changed pfp spotted

[@AyoCrunchy]

🤨

[@cyanofelis]

@@big_numbers I don't get it lol

[@huyphan7825]

Every Smash Game's Greatest Weakness: Smash 1: Lack of Game Design Melee: Reckless Game Design Brawl: Malicious Game Design Smash 4: Thoughtless Game Design Ultimate: *POWER CREEP*

[@bignerd3783]

greed creep

[@carlosemilio385]

The fact that Steve managed to stay "generally bad" in the community until Sakurai finished up with Sora just feels like the community had a linked soul connected to everyone and thought "keep steve in a bad image until Nintendo stops updating Smash bros lol"

[@atiedebee1020]

Gliding? Extremely fast, comboing upair? Insane ledge grabs? This is actually just brawl meta knight

[@snewp_e2139]

At least steve has to camp and gain resources to have access to his powerful moves and crazy combos, brawl meta knight has all his bs stuff by default during the entire match lol

[@greg-un7bk]

@@snewp_e2139 True and at least we have way more character variety now than back then

[@MrJohn8apie]

don't forget 3 up airs in a shorthop :D

[@emeraldmann1329]

Honestly a lot of Steves ladder combos relying on grounded moves that are disproportionately strong makes me think of Steve as like "What if Little Mac could hit B and be on the ground anywhere". Of course, there's a lot more that's better about Steve than that, it just popped into my head.

[@lpgoodgamer7137]

I actually had that same thought while designing a smash clone, the idea that it’s little Mac but can place blocks basically. Ironically the character was Steve and was before he was even announced for ultimate. The end result was the same where he could just ladder you

[@tylerchiu7065]

The pacing of this video was great; jumping between the history of the rise of Steve in competitive gameplay and explaining why its moveset is broken

[@kevcopo]

It’s genuinely CRAZY that you were able to squeeze two hours of info over ONE smash character. This game is crazy but also I can’t even imagine the amount of time you put into this video and amount of research done. Thanks for posting this and it definitely killed some time on long drives ❤

[@cylle3784]

The crazy part is that this is only the surface level of the character

[@snewp_e2139]

To be fair it wasnt just 2 hours of exclusively steve, the first like 20 minutes of the video was over smash bros BEFORE steve was added

[@Krona-fb4dn]

7:38 Bat within was also a MAJOR part of why Bayonetta was so ridiculously extreme. Her air dodge was allowed to be good in a game of baiting air dodges. So she was genuinely hard to hit and could move freely ontop of her many touches of death.

[@thebattle7000]

Her disadvantage was that she had more landing lag after using her side and up specials, which was easily negated by simply grabbing ledge, which her really good movement allowed her to do. Or just to not bother and kill the opponent off the top, since your landing lag doesn't matter while the opponent is being KO'd. .

[@fishyfishyfishy500akabs8]

Also from what I recall Witch time was also degenerate. It turned a simple whiff or stray projectile into an easy opportunity to ping pong the opponent into the blast zone with said TODs

[@Krona-fb4dn]

@@fishyfishyfishy500akabs8 It was absurdly rewarding and was mechanically different than how it is in Ultimate, essentially the timer on it was not relative to the move it countered, but how often Witch Time was used. So the slowdown was much more brief if it was used a lot. But this downside hardly mattered since you only needed it once. IMO, Bayonetta is just a badly designed character and should not be in Smash, not just for the whole Smash 4 ordeal, but in Ultimate as well. She heavily punishes any aggression to her since her combos are so insane that it promotes just camping her out and waiting for the Bayo player to make a bad approach. The "escape" of her combos with SDI isn't a well thought out mechanic as its not really that skilled to me and can be bad for your hand health and also for your controller as well. She's not really like a free form/creative combo character like fox and her weaknesses of just "being light" and finicky kill power are just annoying. If she's gone from the next smash game, I would not be sad in the slightest.

[@ginger_queen8108]

​@@Krona-fb4dn would you like to explain exactly how bayo in ultimate isnt a "free form/creative combo character"? that one line completely invalidates your entire argument, especially when you say that fox is a better example of such. a character's combo game is more than just "can they do drag-down combos? if yes, good combo game. if no, bad combo game."

[@Krona-fb4dn]

@@ginger_queen8108 "Completely invalidates your entire argument" It doesn't? The entire reason Fox is immensely better than Bayonetta is cause Bayo takes far more control away from the enemy and the way to "counter" her is by mashing SDI. Which is A) Not really skilled in much factors B) Lazy design that should be gone C) Has long term negative effects on both your hands and controller D) she can play around SDI, so it’s not really a full-proof counterplay. Fox has pretty telegraphed options and combos and unlike bayonetta, and you can't simply camp him out cause he is so fast. Bayonetta isn't that fast so her oppressive combos kinda just encourage you to stay the hell away from her until she does something stupid, least from my experience. Yeah dragdowns are annoying but that's not a fox exclusive problem, whereas Bayonetta combos ARE pretty exclusive to her. And Bayonetta punishes a player for getting in, if she fucks up and they try to punish her, she has bats or witch time which makes it trickier or reverses it. Bats being a far worse offender since it’s not skilled in any way. Also, edgeguarding and comboing fox is leagues easier than Bayonetta. TL;DR Bayonetta is not fun to fight at all and Fox is.

[@IRFine]

Honestly, as a non-smash player I feel like the most egregious thing here is that the hitbox of Steve’s placed blocks is smaller than a blockspace, but the hitbox of the anvil, which is a SMALLER OBJECT, is larger than a blockspace. Like… what?

[@izzymosley1970]

I think it's interesting that Steve plays just like he does in Minecraft with how on the surface they both seem unimpressive but the more you put into them the more you get out.

[@sharmakefarah2064]

And that's really the problem at the end of the day with Steve as a character in Smash Ultimate. He should be an assist trophy instead.

[@dan_the_swag_man6937]

there should be more 3rd party assist trophies. great chance to add characters that wouldn't work as fighters.​@@sharmakefarah2064

[@RaspyCh]

@@sharmakefarah2064you sound salty bro lol

[@sharmakefarah2064]

@@RaspyCh No, it's that I recognize that certain character concepts and game concepts can't be faithfully translated to smash without completely unbalancing the game, and while I like Steve, he needs to be an assist trophy, not a character.

[@simnm8057]

​@@sharmakefarah2064nah i love broken characters

[@TheManDude]

18:47 “Welcome to fighting Whitespace: you’ve been here for as long as you can remember.”

[@omegahaxors9-11]

37:55 Projectiles have smaller hitboxes because the game interpolates hit detection across frames. Because projectiles are often fast, it means their hitbox will be extended to cover all the area between the first frame and the second, and end up being a lot larger in practice.

[@anonymousoff-brand7538]

steve has alot of issues on the individual moves(all three moves that involve pushing the stick 'up' are of note), but i kinda feel like the big, overall glaring issue with steve as a whole all comes to the resource mechanic not having been properly balanced.

[@sharmakefarah2064]

Yep, he has no actual cost to getting the good stuff, covered with the block's ability to force approaches, which is just one of the many broken things it does for Steve.

[@MasterKnightDH]

Resource involvement being misbalanced is a significant problem, especially with Down Air and Side B, but it's far from the only one. The blocks' stupid high durability would still be an issue in addition to them being used for some cheese moments, and the attacks have some blatantly overtuned speed factor going on here and there as well.

[@Zal_TWasTaken]

The biggest problem of steve is that he can carry a bit too much iron, it makes his snowballing way too good

[@sharmakefarah2064]

@@Zal_TWasTaken He also gets resources too easily without cost, mostly due to block as a move being broken.

[@StoryTeller796]

The price for both cart and anvil should be raised, and a different condition/minigame should be replacing mashing for being stuck in things. Then, make each health point of every block except for iron sliced in half. Then make there be a weak spot inside of the blocks that make them take more damage than if they were hit on the outer, stronger spot.

[@mrbister8714]

I also think it’d be better if Steve could be forced to lose some of those resources. Minecart would be a lot less infuriating to get hit by if it felt like Steve not only worked to get it more, but worked to actually KEEP it instead of being allowed to let it rip whenever he wanted like a movable command grab waft.

[@StoryTeller796]

@mrbister8714 This too! This would honestly be great too.

[@broom673]

I honestly just think Minecart has no business being a literal moving grab hitbox when he jumps out of it. I understand it does this to NPC's in the game, but it's abhorrently annoying to deal with, especially in a game with a minimum 11 frame delay online. It doesn't do this to other players even in PVP either so it just seems like an effect that was added for the novelty with no consideration of how annoying it is to deal with in a fighting game.

[@StoryTeller796]

@broom673 This is also fair. Just make it do knockback instead no matter what. Also, I would not mind that after Steve's more directly overpowered and easy to use options are defanged with just how much they can be thrown out, Steve's other options could be better highlighted.

[@ArchaicEX]

I got sick of this game years ago so I haven't been keeping up with how it's played now, and I enjoyed this analysis. Although now I want to see another one of these about Sonic, because I want to know what you keep talking about there.

[@__8120]

if I had a nickel for every time a fighting game added a DLC character that was supposed to be balanced around resource management but that ended up being not nearly enough of a downside, I would have at least two nickels

[@mattemig5868]

halfway through and this is some quality content. don't usually comment on videos i watch but i thought you deserve more praise and attention edit: i also love how there's an A plot and a B plot in this, i've really never seen a youtube video do something like this before. it's so foreboding hearing the creation of a monster (aka optimal steve players) in-between the in-depth busted move analyses. bravo

[@mehmeh1602]

Never really agreed with the "wait until he over-centralises the meta" argument: -when it happened with bayonetta/MK nobody was willing to drop those characters for the sake of a healthy meta, the japanese players even refused to attend tourneys with meta knight banned (reminiscent of what we got with steve banned tourneys) -Preventing the worst case scenario should be more important than waiting for it to happen, because it's usually too late when it does.

[@youvegot]

its been years since steves release. the way he is in the meta right now theres no good reason to believe he will ever be overcentralizing. if it happens itll be because of something we currently dont know about. imo you shouldnt ban a character because of the possibility that they might be better in the far future

[@mehmeh1602]

​@@youvegot I still stand by what's been said in my comment. Waiting for over-centralisation hasn't benefited anyone and never led to decisive action anywhere in thr previous games

[@Zal_TWasTaken]

@@mehmeh1602 you clearly didn't watch the entire video

[@mehmeh1602]

@TheLegend-jr9ng I did, but you're cleary incapable of forming a worthwhile thought.

[@Zal_TWasTaken]

@@mehmeh1602 your argument is dumb and that’s it stop crying about steve being the best character since that doesn’t equal to a ban just learn the matchup if you lose to steve players.

[@Jerweh]

Dabiz said it best. "We're lucky Steve isn't as fun to play as Bayonetta in smash 4"

[@iantaakalla8180]

And even then, Smash Ultimate is basically withered; that fact is why Smash Ultimate is not dead. Heck, it may as well be dead, and that fact is why Ultimate is not extinct.

[@malachiatkinson7245]

So what exactly made Bayonetta so good in Sm4sh? I just hear that she was, not why she was

[@Programmable_Rook]

@@malachiatkinson7245I think it’s because of her massive mobility. They made her a pretty slow character, but her side and up specials allow for ridiculous combo game in the air anyway. It’s my understanding that the problem is literally like one easy-to-preform combo using those moves.

[@leaffinite2001]

​​@malachiatkinson7245 7:35 Basically this lmao Edit: like look at that combo on wario. Pure evil

[@justseffstuff3308]

"Meaning sometimes blocks will just nullify projectiles outright" genuinely what the *fuck* I could tell at a glance altering the very stage would be broken but DAMN, they went above and beyond to make it twice as broken as it needed to be

[@ToyFreddyGaming1987]

Steve's known for breaking blocks, so when he came to Smash Bros, he decided to up his game!

[@Monody512]

It's strange that Anvil's damage doesn't scale with how far it's fallen. That's how it works in its game of origin. I do appreciate how the simple ability of placing blocks has such a mechanically deep overpoweredness to it though. That's delightfully accurate to the source material, even if it is a balance issue that should be addressed.

[@modestMismagius105]

this video made me take great solace in the fact that i don't play smash competitively and don't have the dlcs so I won't ever have to fight against this character

[@champion_ofcloud-var]

online smash

[@DrMonty-ng5fo]

I don't even play this game, yet I watched the entire video. Super well made!

[@Piggles64099]

I didn’t expect to watch this whole thing while clicking on this video, but you kept my attention for the whole 2 hours. Love your content ❤❤❤

[@flipperjr.3822]

Lets not forget that the day he was announced, Twitter and KZbin completely shit the bed and stopped working normally.

[@koathekid8255]

Well yes the arrrival of a god tends to cause *~damage~*

[@texasred8424]

steve's interactions between his kit seem really fun and there seems to be a high skill ceiling involved with them! if only there was a platform fighter where every character can place something down on the stage and also have deep interactions with their tools and- wait

[@Caldoric]

?

[@texasred8424]

@@Caldoric hello homestuck pfp. i am talking about rivals of aether

[@Caldoric]

@@texasred8424 oh right, RoE. I've only slightly touched that one, and only because it has the option to play Ori from Blind Forest/Will of the Wisps.

[@jtreview7506]

As someone who doesn’t have any real understanding of all the techs in smash, but I know enough about games in general to understand mostly what I see, Steve actually really fun to watch because his moves are so visually distinct that you can easily understand how each part of the combo leads to the next, and because of that he simply looks more skillful and interesting to watch than he might be to an experienced player.

[@commscan314]

If you want to watch easily understood free-flow combos, watch 64, where almost every combo will deal a MASSIVE percentage and last for 5 or 6 moves.

[@dzintars8034]

Genuinely looks like the most fun part of the game, I haven't and probably never will play it but watching good players do those crazy moves and beat up others as a block man is just so enjoyable. The amount of moves and depth to his playstyle is crazy, if they ever balance him I hope it's not just removing parts of his kit

[@MorrowMoon_thenightwing]

31:07 I actually love the Gigantourneys. If you manage to get a Mushroom, plus the already boosted size increase, Ridley's nair covered the whole stage

[@taytenlorn7971]

It's just funny to me that Steve, of all characters, is the most Controversial characters in smash history

[@Magic_Ice]

Sakurai said he worked on this character for 5 years and he made it so everyone will play this character for the rest of time,

[@StarmenRock]

Instead a lot of people dropped the game. Poetic

[@115zombies935]

@@StarmenRockFacts

[@StarmenRock]

@@115zombies935 steve singlehandedly killed smash in my area, all the disputes over banning it eventually turned everyone away from the game onto other things. Not even smash 4 bayo did that

[@115zombies935]

@@StarmenRock Same thing happened in my area sadly. We eventually ended up switching over to HDR though which had been so much more fun and brought some of the people who left back.

[@StarmenRock]

@@115zombies935 oh nice, im glad things got at least a little bit better

[@armandomorfin3845]

1:31:05 quick rant, I've always hated that F-Smash was overtuned, when I first saw the move it looked like the type to have lag to punish if the move missed. So I was hoping it'd be able to punish it but not only is it lagless, it also has massive disjoint because of the absurd hitboxes and animation being generous with just how small/short the hurtbox is but the pullback and lean forward helps a lot too. Risk reward is too favored so it randomly getting a higher multiplier was too much, why do I explode at 50% if hit or trade with the move and I can barely whiff punish the move half of the time because I have to over respect it

[@thehuman2cs715]

I'm glad to see someone share my view of the move, it's absurd for no reason and would stand out like a sore thumb on anyone but Steve.

[@funnygamer.692]

Fr, if you look at it long enough, you'll realize this move is literally just sonic's fsmash but stronger and faster on both startup and endlag, only missing the ability to angle it.

[@griffinkimball2454]

I would love to see something like this with Sonic and his journey from being considered low mid tier at the start of the game to number 2 in the game

[@Scepti]

Not sure if this is why, but looking carefully at Sonic's animation as he resets to standing up-right after a footstool, at the first part of the animation the highest point of Sonic's hitbox (and thus probably the part that the Anvil "hits") is on his left side, consistent with a right launch of the Anvil, but as he ascends to full height he shifts his quill (and the rotation of the hurtbox) to have the highest point on the right side of his top bone. This theory would need some testing though not sure if it's consistent with the stand up animations of other characters or if that is the point in the animation where the swap from left launch to right launch.

[@grfrjiglstan]

I’m just glad that this game, and this channel, are both alive and well.

[@yalieyal4362]

Surprisingly thorough and like also insightful, im honestly so impressed

[@NamaeAidiaNai]

I wanted Steve in Smash essentially from Ult's launch. Everyone said I was an idiot for thinking Steve would be put in. Look who's laughing now!

[@NamaeAidiaNai]

@msmith1613 stay mad stay bad lmao

[@RaheemRollair]

It’s been months since that last video. I’m glad I got notified.

[@mettatonex7221]

The whole live service aspect of the game gets even crazier. Not only are they still releasing Spirit Events, they're still making Spirits (well, they might be done now, but their most recent release was this year). They made spirits to commemorate Tears of the Kingdom, Scarlet and Violet, Xenoblade 3, Splatoon 3, Pikmin 4, and most recently, Super Mario Bros Wonder and Princess Peach Showtime (I'm still waiting for them to be released onto the Spirit Board). It's not like Spirit Events, which could simply be made in advance and queued up to release at certain times, new Spirits are reactionary, being made in response to new releases, and they each come with their own specialized battles, so a fair amount of work goes into them; they don't just slap a new PNG into the game and call it a day. So if they're willing to keep doing that, why are they not willing to do balance patches anymore?

[@dragnjames2190]

Because the balancing team dissolved after Sora's release? Because that team went on to work on other projects at Bandai Namco? ( Tekken 8 ) They can't keep supporting Smash forever. The game is decently balanced as it is. Post Launch Spirit board events are nothing. They're just literally just promo events for whatever prolific game is out that week. Nothing about spirit board events points to the balance of our beloved party game.

[@freddiesimmons1394]

​@@dragnjames2190any monkey with eyes and interest in smash could balance the game with the little nudges as precedent a twitter account

[@albinofroggy]

@@freddiesimmons1394Project M has spent the better part of the last decade trying to do that and they still can't figure it out. It's not as easy as you think.

[@freddiesimmons1394]

@@albinofroggy a lot of the problem is and was pushback from the public. Too many people wanted their game to be better for them and put their nostalgia first

[@snewp_e2139]

Money is why, developers aren’t going to change their game without getting paid for it. Its not as simple as just tweaking a few numbers, thought and effort has to be put into these changes and i dont think nintendo is going to want to pay developers to make ONLY BALANCE CHANGES for a game that has already completed its dlc cycle and is more or less finished. You’re undermining the amount of work and resources that go into these changes

[@anonymousapproximation8549]

I feel like the hurtbox not matching to the sides of the block was intentionally, considering that you can't break blocks with projectiles, unless said projectile explodes.

[@Maxler5795]

Steve reminds me of abigail on sfv. Clear weaknesses, but an out of whack-e-roo risk reward ratio.

[@alexanderwright8275]

almost every single Steve clip in this vid would make me rage quit the whole ass game if it happened to me in a tournament

[@TheRealBatabii]

what I'm hearing is that most of this could be solved by halving his resource meter. And reducing the HP of all blocks by, idk, 4?

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

Make the block hitboxes bigger, and make the HP of blocks scale by 3 instead of 4 (dirt has 6 hp, wood 9, ect) Glue Steve to the anvil, make its power always the weaker version, and make it always knock back in the direction Steve is facing Remove the command grab part from minecart, remove the invulnerability at the start, and don't shrink his legs Recreating his table should take a second or two. When Steve dies, he loses all diamonds and gold, and doesn't get the free iron unless he dies with a totally empty inventory. Remove placing blocks at ledge, or else give blocks ledges if placed offstage.

[@drak0burn]

@@aprinnyonbreak1290i think these ideas are too much of a nerf

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

@@drak0burn He's still absurdly broken after all this

[@drak0burn]

@@aprinnyonbreak1290 not a chance pal. Even the block nerf by half is heavy, nevermind allat

[@xolotltolox7626]

​@@drak0burnboohoo, anyways

[@michaelstringfellow6754]

I was having a pretty okay day. Then i saw the picture of the hurtbox for the block. That shit pissed me off so bad...

[@GeometrydashBrad]

One of the best videos I’ve seen recently, thanks for making this

[@kitsuneprincess4637]

Just wanted to say, the pacing in this video was *fantastic*. Thanks for a good listen!

[@tfthief4931]

What's even worse was their tone deaf video of "the game is balanced and all the fighters are as close to 50% win rate as possible" bullshit

[@MasterKnightDH]

Yeah, there are factors that can skew win rates percents.

[@tfthief4931]

@@MasterKnightDH Thing is too, just by the nature of how elite smash works, ofc every fighter is gonna be close to 50%. That's literally how it was designed. It's the same as being like "You can tell this is a bell curve because it's a bell curve" 🤦‍♂️

[@broom673]

I've been saying that Sakurai isn't necessarily too bright when it comes to certain things for years. I think he has a creative mind, but I believe he's historically never been that good at executing his ideas because he is just not in touch with the people that enjoy his games at all. Elite Smash and Arenas are amazing ideas riddled with horrific problems because he is afraid of hurting the feelings of people with blatantly scrubby mentalities who kill the game for everyone else. Not even casuals enjoy fighting a two stock, one minute match, laggy, Sonic.

[@N12015]

I have to disagree with You in a bit of the last aspect. The scene kinda felt off hard after the community got an unnecessary outrage against Panda and Allan, cancelling official tournaments as a result. In general I feel Steve is banworthy due to having moves way too good and rewarding awful gameplay patterns, but it's too late to do anything about it.

[@ShyRanger]

I would also argue the scene dropped off due to pandemic conditions, where less local and in-person tournaments were around, shining an even bigger light on how bad Smash online is when it was the only choice for such a while.

[@lasercraft32]

The problem with making Steve's Up Special use redstone is that you won't have redstone at the start of the match... Your opponent would just need to knock you off the stage and suddenly you don't have a recovery. They would need to implement a weaker version that doesn't use the firework rockets, but that would feel awkward just going into a glide when using up special.

[@MasterKnightDH]

Or here's a happy medium: use Redstone _if available_ with the penalty for not having sufficient Redstone being significantly shortened travel distance. This would even have Steve need to think about the Redstone usage, while still being able to recover at all.

[@Kapow59]

Given what Ive been put through by steves during this games lifetime, I say they deserve it

[@koathekid8255]

@@Kapow59I mean yeah Put you in a race If he mines for a bit he’s a god if you set to him blessed be crust on god *now* you win forever

[@stylishlance]

One topic I'm surprised you didn't cover about uptilt and upsmash was about how blocks when set up in The Wall ™ formation is how you either have to attack the wall and run the very real risk of getting counterhit by Steve or jump over it, when he has two of the best antiair's in the game. Both of which having different uses as well, with uptilt obviously meant for combos and upsmash for killing. So no matter the percent at which you're at it really just boils down to a damned if you do damned if you don't when dealing with The Wall ™

[@morganlak4337]

He says this around the 20 minute mark

[@LateefA519]

Giving steve minecart is one of sakurais greatest sins

[@sharmakefarah2064]

I'd argue Block is the greater sin, but yes Minecart was in retrospect very poorly designed.

[@LateefA519]

@@sharmakefarah2064 I think steve without minecart would give steve a very resource intensive game play where he has to box you out and gain resources but when you get in on him he eats shit in disadvantage and imo that would be a very balanced character. Block isn't broken itself imo and is actually a really fun mechanic for a character. Minecart is pure bullshit giving steve way too many mixups in the air and punishes you for being in advantage state. Like why would they make a broken character where mobility is his weakness and then give him all the mobility he needs with minecart and elytra

[@yungmuney5903]

Minecart is fine conceptually and makes sense for a side special, its just hits too hard and the grab hitbox that ignores shield for some reason needs to go.

[@LateefA519]

@@yungmuney5903 Nah when I say this I don't mean the idea of a minecart as a side special I mean the side special he has now which is a stupid grab hitbox that comes out way too fast hits way too hard and grabs for way too long. Every single interaction with it feels like such bullshit and prevents steve matchups that would otherwise be completely do-able without that stupid get of me tool, recovery and landing mixup bullshit move. I hate minecart to my core everything else about steve just feels like an amalgamation of pacman and joker two very respectable characters. Minecart takes steves already overtuned and goofy moveset into something that feels abhorently disgusting to play against.

[@thebananaspeedruns9275]

The reason Minecart is a command grab when empty is most likely because in Minecraft small most medium and some large mobs can be put into an empty Mincart so the devs most likely made the Mincart a command grab to more accurately represent how they work in Minecraft

[@slugintub2836]

"Medium" Ghast:

[@koathekid8255]

@@slugintub2836he’s a medium when deflated Like a balloon but powered by hellfire

[@projectz358]

Could’ve been prevented if they didn’t suddenly said no more patches, whatever still needed work can stay busted or useless.

[@tkienjoyer]

I remember getting back into smash right when acola hit top 1 (last I was active was evo 2019 with the legendary tweek vs Leo set) and everyone was saying "ban steve!" and I'm thinking: "what a funny community, commonly saying funny block game guy is op! Indeed, worth a chuckle." and then I realized he's actually the best lol.

[@cylle3784]

I had the exact same situation. I rejoined Smash like a week after PMLG, ironically because I wanted to look at Steve memes (even though I had no idea that he was top tier at the time). Needless to say I was instantly sent into euphoria when I heard he was the best in the game and people wanted to ban him

[@spyr0guy]

An experienced steve player can not only crush your soul, but meticulously disassemble it before your very eyes.

[@Banksy_Collective]

As a steve main, I really enjoyed the video; it's a great breakdown of the character. I agree that a number of his moves are overtuned but his learning curve and the difficulty of NILs really limits how many people are willing to pick him up. I may be in the minority here but i really hope they don't change block in later games, the bottomless well of tech makes steve a really interesting character to learn.

[@ghostoflazlo]

I wish he would have focused a bit on this, the learning curve that is. He mentions it, don't get me wrong, but it would have been a nice addition to the video.

[@Zal_TWasTaken]

If you look at it from the developer's perspective it's quite understandible why they made Steve strong Not only did he take 6 months to develop (in japan where work hours are 10-12 hours a day) but also Minecraft is the most popular game in the world. So it's safe to assume that most of the devs probably like Minecraft. Combining personal bias and the ammount of work put into this single character i'm sure that they didn't want to feel like their work was wasted. Since if i would work for 6 months (IN JAPAN WHERE WORK...) on a fairly minor thing i would want to make sure people WILL remember/use it (just like the go...) That's all i've got to say thanks for reading.

[@sauce5097]

21:48 My jaw dropped when I saw the actual hitbox of the blocks. It feels so intentional to make him even more overtuned. Like why Sakurai

[@Sunny-vp7lr]

Idk how much it would nerf him, but I think a change could be that after a certain amount of mining, his inventory fills and he can’t mine anymore til he uses it

[@ethancloute7194]

Love the way you go between the history and the analysis! Great vid

[@ungsund]

I’ve said way early on. Steve should NEVER have been able to place blocks while mid-air. I think he’s very cleverly designed, and that fact that sakurai even made Steve happen is so freaking hype. But if they really wanted to keep him true to his game, blocks should work just like they do in Minecraft.

[@zekromfan1]

I’ve always felt that Steve was strong, even on release. And seeing the raw damage numbers really puts into perspective just how strong he really is. The question then becomes why? Did the team really think this was ok? How did this happen, was there no quality control on this? What was the thought process behind Steve’s design? Did they want to make him something like a Little Mac or heavyweight? Someone strong in power but lacking mobility? Because if that was the intention, it really doesn’t feel like it. That’s the only way I can reason that these numbers are the way they are, maybe at one point in development his design was a different so these numbers made sense, but they never changed them. Honestly I wonder if in some interview somewhere Sakurai explained his reasoning behind Steve’s design. If so that might answer our questions.

[@sharmakefarah2064]

A lot of it is the fact that they were so focused on making Steve actually function properly (remember, they had to redesign every stage, and it's certain that they had to do a lot of work to make Steve playable at all) that they forgot that they needed to balance Steve much more rigorously than other characters.

[@aprinnyonbreak1290]

​@@sharmakefarah2064 Yeah As I remember (please correct me if I'm wrong, it's been a minute), Sakurai mentioned that the process of getting Steve to work took something like 4 or 5 years of work interspaced with, y'know, 80 other characters getting touched, made, tweaked, ect. Getting Steve working at all probably took priority, with a dose of "I've put all this time into this, I'm not about to sledgehammer it because it maybe seems a little busted". Then lights out on the balance team, then whoops! it turns out Steve wasn't a little busted, he's obscenely busted

[@LilacMonarch]

The amount of hp they gave his blocks is insane, just having the blocks there is already powerful enough, they don't need to be able to tank attacks too. Like the dirt block should have 1 HP, wood 1.5, stone 2, and iron 2.5, and deteriorate 0.15 hp/sec That way they still stick around the same amount of time, but any attack will usually destroy them. Oh and make the hurtbox reach a little outside the blocks so projectiles aren't just nullified

[@notpyro1307]

"Now I Am Become Steve, the Destroyer of Overworlds." - Steve (Probably)

[@grunkleg.2934]

If I had to guess, the balance team is probably no longer on the payroll after development concludes

[@justanothermanontheinternet]

Thanks, Rezkius, before this video I really disliked Steve, hated him even, even thought his players were boosted. Now, after hearing all of this, I feel exactly the same but now I’m equipped with information to support my beliefs. Thank you.

[@cloudedarctrooper]

21:30 "All these squares make a circle.... All these squares make a circle.... All these squares make a circle...."

[@Aaa-vp6ug]

“WHY DO ALL THESE SQUARES MAKE A CIRCLE?!” - Perfectionist Cell

[@kamiwriterleonardo6345]

In short, basically: When Steve's on the stage, you WILL play by HIS rules.

[@H20ZTS]

The fact that canonically he is this strong - only second to kirby is insane

[@Baconator2558]

Is he?

[@H20ZTS]

@@Baconator2558 he can carry a practically infinite amount of gold blocks

[@Baconator2558]

@H20ZTS To be fair, there are a lot of characters from games with inventories that you could use similar arguments for. Additionally, even with that, does he have anything beyond lifting strength, like durability or speed? Does he have good form or reflexes? In Minecraft, his durability doesn't seem to be too far off from a real human's, and things like fire or being launched high into the air seem like they'd be really hard for him to deal with.

[@H20ZTS]

He can hold a bucket of lava without feeling any heat for some reason 😭. And he can technically break almost any block with his bare hands he just won't get the item drop. Also command blocks and creative mod kinda make him a god too If u really think about it. Nothing beats Kirby though lil dude solos everyone

[@koathekid8255]

@@H20ZTSwith the amount of water in water buckets you might actually give him indigestion Or at least it will work as a pacifier for a while