The Problem With Frustrating Characters In Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

[@VarsIII]

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[@kcbsuiejd]

dont get sponsored by raid please if you care about your fans. They just literally exploit problems in people to get their money and use addics for money gain.... first video of yours I downvoted and wont watch to the end, sorry

[@danytalksmusic]

Sick thumbnail!

[@VarsIII]

@@kcbsuiejd Sure let me just pay my bills with monopoly money then.

[@M9Divine]

Wouldn't matter to me if there were 5 sponsors in the video. Your content is amazing and informative either way.

[@kcbsuiejd]

@@VarsIII I understand that they pay well. just consider getting sponsors that dont hurt your viewers for money. Nothing personal, just know people who lost their entire life savings to that bullshit "game"

[@MerryBlind]

The real problem is Nintendo having stopped balance patches only about a month after releasing the last DLC.

[@ayar2]

they cant keep patching the game forever, especially for a community as picky and demanding as the smash one.

[@MerryBlind]

@@ayar2 There’s a difference between 2-3 patches over a few months and forever.

[@ayar2]

@@MerryBlind they were like "a couple patches and were done, let the casuals be casuals and the competitive be competitive.

[@MerryBlind]

@@ayar2 Except we didn’t get those couple patches.

[@ayar2]

@@MerryBlind still people would keep complaining, because the patches more likely will be limited to damage and knockback tweaks, they somehow achieved the most balanced roster in the series so far and they wont risk altering it just for a minority. P.S. Kazuya´s incredibly hard and precise to master compared to bayonetta or metaknight, so any skill level below high or top (most of the players, both casual and competitive) wont be enough to exploit his gimmicks.

[@King_Rowlet]

The way you described Kazuya is pretty much the average Tekken fight, where one mistake can cost you a whole round lmao

[@ayar2]

so TEKKEN 7

[@terriblyterrified8742]

classic sakurai being faithful to the source material

[@Kydino]

Geese/Akuma + wall and meter, don't even need rage lmao.

[@MiesterDX595]

@@terriblyterrified8742 W sakurai

[@CronyneWARE]

Me getting hit by a giant jumping left leg attack even though I sidestepped all the way to behind their right shoulder. I fucking hate wr3.

[@ink3487]

In my mind the annoying characters are split into 2 groups. The first group is where the character heavily encourages zoning or keep-away, characters like steve or min min. These characters are unfun to play against because you cant hit them, theyre halfway across the stage throwing minecarts or noodle arms at you. Especially with steve you cant even decide to camp him back because every second you let him breathe he's getting rescources. The other group is characters that encourage YOU to play zoning or keep away, characters like kazuya and little mac. These characters are so oppressive when you are in their "danger zone" that you need to avoid them at all costs. Everyone says "just camp little mac lol" but camping little mac just isnt fun for either side and throwing projectiles at kazuya for half the match and running away from him cuz you dont want to die at 20 the other half just isnt fun.

[@XBeastModeXEPIC]

Co-signed because you hit the nail on the head with this one

[@harrylane4]

So you’re just saying you don’t like zoners or rush down lol

[@ink3487]

@@harrylane4 I don't like zoners, where did you get rush down from?

[@jolt8337]

@@ink3487 I think he meant you mentioning Kazuya and Mac. Now I believe he's trying to imply those characters are rush-down charcters, and while they're not, they're bait-and-punish, it is kinda true that you're basically saying you really only like playing against mid-ranged characters.

[@unsureprobablymaybe3527]

I'd rather fight a lil mac than a kazuya anyday. If a mac slips up once you can punish him hard

[@niro6199]

I find it kinda sad how all the dlc pass 2 characters seemed cool and interesting on paper, but then became the most frustrating/broken characters in the game

[@krusher181]

Also sad that everyone predicted it.

[@AIejandroide]

So would the smash community prefer to have more basic character that do the same thing that other existing characters but in a different way? Or have really unique new characters like steve that has its own mechanics?

[@hannibal8810]

@@AIejandroide its not like you cant have unique mechanics in characters without them being broken

[@simonanderson4858]

@@hannibal8810 Exactly. Steve is a wonderfully creative character and has inspired many to learn the game from a new perspective. That does not mean he needs easy 0-60% combos and consistent kill setups after 2 interactions

[@sumisu5636]

Sakurai why did you make them broken 😭

[@gameboyn64]

i think what is most frustrating is when there is a massive gap between a given move's risk vs reward. every instance of an annoying character is when this balance is missing with some or most of their move set.

[@yurplethepurple2064]

To be fair, it’s hard to make a combo starter both commital and effective bc when you add end lag to it it suddenly loses a lot of purpose

[@gameboyn64]

@@yurplethepurple2064 most combo starters are well balanced in risk reward. The risk is measured in the difficulty of landing the move vs the type of follow-up you can get off the move. Something that also lowers the relative reward of combo starters in general is the fact that a follow-up is required in the first place. This increase in the difficulty to receive the reward lowers the value of the reward. When a combo starter becomes easy to hit or spam, it becomes a problem. It also becomes a problem if the reward off the combo starter is greatly disproportional to the difficulty required to start the combo. For example, most nair 1 or fair 1 combo starters have incredible rewards for their safety however are incredibly hard to hit in the first place. Most d tilt combo starters typically trade their easier execution for less safety and lessor rewards. This makes these combos resonably fair. Meanwhile, Characters like steve and kazuya break this by having far greater rewards than the difficulty of landing their combo starters would imply with the former being fast and spammable for great rewards, and the latter having ridiculous follow-ups.

[@AkuoSubliminals]

@@gameboyn64 i dont know why simple points, like the one you made above, are so difficult for the ultimate community to comprehend.

[@orangeslash1667]

@@gameboyn64 Sakurai made a video about risk and reward.

[@Taktaagic]

As a Kazuya player- I just wish I could do those combos lmao

[@thedank6849]

Same ;_;

[@MetaGamingDojo]

@ChrisTheArcticFox you meant steve is the only crackhead without hands but wins anyway?🤭

[@thenoseguy]

@ChrisTheArcticFox I'm all for the ARMS slander

[@Jjarmyboy]

i hadnt watch the sakurai presents and took a break from smash... College roomate turns out to be a kazuya main :0 i just wish the option was bound in the game and not pic someone kazuya cant deal with, that sucks the fun from both sides

[@folabi1076]

It took me a year to Learn ewgf

[@SheonEver]

I feel like the presence of frustrating characters, generally speaking, is not as frustrating as the fact a good 4 out of 5 major tournament wins go to a player using a DLC character -- it's frustrating that their strength to weakness ratio is out of balance with most of the original lineup.

[@GawainSSB]

Big part of the problem in Ultimate is that the characters that people find annoying are incredibly powerful and prominent, doubly so when playing online(which is how most people are playing). Characters like Rob, Steve, Sonic etc are very common in these scenarios, it isn't uncommon to play smash online and get nothing but these characters for many hours. The truth with Ultimate is that being non interactive is just better most of the time if you want to win.

[@Joe_334]

I don't feel bad spamming grenades with Snake when we have King K. Rool here just sitting on his fat ass throwing his crown and shooting. Everyone I come across does this, until they get mad and start chasing because another character landed a hit on them.

[@whispersmusic6173]

@@Joe_334 Banjo

[@100organicfreshmemes5]

@@Joe_334 K. Rool is low tier wtf are you on about? His projectiles are good but nowhere near as good as R.O.B.'s or Palu's.

[@arbalest327]

​​@@Joe_334think that's bad, play little Mac or sephiroth like me and play against stupid ass no skill aegis every match, Steve spammer, and joker crutchers every match, or worst of all min min players

[@orangeslash1667]

@@whispersmusic6173 Banjo needs to be very patient and attack when the opponent makes a mistake or be campy if Banjo can't find an opening. He's kinda like Sonic in a sense. In Banjo Tooie, boss fights are about running away from the bosses until they expose themselves. It also take about 6 mins to beat the Hag 1 in Banjo Tooie as well. Also Banjo's nair can sometimes damage characters on shield. One trick I discovered is that Banjo can edge guard with nair, and if Shockspring jump isn't enough he can use Wonderwing to make it back on stage.

[@robsquare2622]

All I'm saying is if by Nintendos standards, Zero suit deserved nerfs, then steve kazuya absolutely do as well.

[@AshenDemon]

Facts

[@arbalest327]

Nerf electric wind god fist only tbh

[@Ninjondo777]

I think one of the biggest issues for me personally is the fact that there are such a surplus of characters that can be frustrating to fight against. I wouldn’t mind it if there was only a few characters that were like this, but when it comes to character pool, it can be unfun to fight so many of these frustrating characters especially when they dominate the meta and it feels like so many people play them. When my brackets go from Min Min into Kazuya into Steve into aegis I just feel to myself I could be playing something else that’s more enjoyable.

[@zin5582]

what is frustrating about aegis to fight against? i assume if shes annoying to fight so are roy, chrom, lucina, etc

[@l.n.3372]

Ouch. Min Min, into Steve, into Pyra/Mythra or Kazuya would be painful. It's definitely demoralizing for sure.

[@chrisalangreening]

@@zin5582 it’s just dlc privilege. They’re all broken, at this point you gotta pick up a dlc as a secondary to keep up

[@moviegametime3891]

I competely feel you, bro. I run into so many Samus, Ness, Steve and Game&Watch players and this game has become more of a patience game for me than anything else. The good thing about fighting these annoying characters so often is that, precisely, I've developed a lot of patience and I'm now quite decent at reading my opponent, anticipate him, bait him and punish him. I hate zoning, I always prefer to get up close and personal, but against certain characters, you really need to learn to be VERY patient until you see an opening. But thanks to all this patience-acquiring process, now I perform quite decently in my local tournaments, I reach 3rd place often now lol

[@oliviahughes3158]

@@chrisalangreening That's not a real answer. Rob, Roy, Sonic, Shulk, Cloud, Pikachu, Wario, Wolf, Palutena, and so many more characters are non-dlc and also have plenty of ridiculous nonsense to deal with, whether it be the combination of ridiculous speed and power by Roy, the speed of sonic, the safety of Pikachu, the ginormous hitboxes of Wolf and Cloud, the literal low percentage kill setups of Rob and Wario, and what have you. You don't need to purchase the DLC at all. Unlike all of the previous entries, SSBU is actually a game that requires you to get good and can reward you for doing so

[@GreetingsMortal]

It’s amazing seeing Kazuya terrorize people in the exact same way he does in the game he comes from lol

[@juniperrodley9843]

While I consider Kazuya an overall well-enough balanced character, I do think there's an argument to be made that perhaps things that worked in Tekken don't necessarily work in Smash

[@GreetingsMortal]

@@juniperrodley9843 I agree. Especially considering the EWGF has more answers to it in Tekken than it does in Smash (like being able to duck it or side step it)

[@kazejay7229]

@@GreetingsMortal literally

[@dragonfruitreal]

@@GreetingsMortal you can still duck if you are playing kirby lol

[@wesleynichols1873]

Most annoying character for each game 64: Pikachu Melee: Pikachu Wii: Pikachu WiiU/3ds: Pikachu Ultimate: Pikachu

[@junghwanbaik2385]

I feel like what's frustrating depends so heavily on your main. Like I find it frustrating to fight sheik and fox but most people like and want to play against those fast rushdown characters. Other players might hate sword characters, zoners, etc

[@ketz_165]

who do you main?

[@junghwanbaik2385]

@@ketz_165 sephiroth

[@ellamayo9045]

That makes a lot of sense. I main Marth and Ken mostly, and I personally dislike playing against most DKs I’ve come across, while a lot of people find them enjoyable to play against. Looking back on it, I definitely don’t think DK is an unfair character, just one that I feel severely limits the options of characters I main.

[@zer0cx110]

That’s true. Also, it depends on what level of players ur playing against like most top layers hate pikachu but I don’t cus I never play against ppl like Esam lol.. But I do think there are some characters with corny mechanics tho … no matter who I’m playing.. LIKE.. 1. Joker.. cus of arsan .. and his tether recovery makes him hard to edge gaurd 2. Olimar… cus ppl play him so campy .. and his projectiles can block a lot of projectiles . He’s also short 3. Mr. game and watch .. cus he’s short and his pancakes are annoying .. I literally think every move he has is annoying .. 4. Peach .. cus she can be hard to hit sometimes 5. Kazuya .. because I feel like most ppl aren’t even skilled with him and b winning games in elite smash 😒 armor on everything ..with a good command grab 6. Sonic because he’s so fast … and so is fox, sometimes 7. Sora .. because I feel so many ppl don’t use this character and perform well in elite smash too by using basic attacks .. like kazuya 8. Rosalina because hiding behind a punching bag is wack 😒 That’s all for me lol.

[@SSM24_]

I think it depends a lot on what types of characters you play. For example, I actually have a reasonably fun time fighting zoners as Yoshi because his air mobility and Egg Toss give him a lot of options for moving around their attacks and approaching. But when I'm playing Ganondorf I'm just like please end my suffering. Also, don't worry, you're not alone in hating playing against fast characters like Fox and Sheik. My brain just doesn't work fast enough to keep up D:

[@RabanoDoom]

The two biggest universal factors are defensive play and touch kill. Every single most hated character (64 Pika, 64 Kirby, Melee Puff, Melee ICs, Brawl Meta Knight, Brawl ICs, S4 Bayo, S4 Cloud, Ultimate Steve, and Ultimate Kazuya) will tend to play passively and risklessly while killing you in one hit for daring to come anywhere near them, sometimes also having mechanics to force you to take that risk like safe damage or infinite duration buffs. It's like the devs saw people suffer and have to play painfully passively around characters like ice climbers, puff, and 64 and brawls entire metas, and instead of being like "maybe this archetype of touch-kill turtle characters isn't healthy or fun for either player" they said "hey stop hiding from the instant death player and go die," forcing the only possible counterplay out of viability with bayo's bullets, cloud's limit, and steve's mining.

[@ReconNarwhal]

Getting punished for wanting to interact with these characters is terrible character design 101. Fighting games are a lot like a dance. If they block low, you go for the overhead, etc. Waiting for your opponent to get carried by their DLC mechanic or having them kill you at 40 percent for making one minor mistake off one interaction is no fun. The problem with making DLC characters is that giving these mechanics to them makes the DLC player feel like a god because they can bypass that dance entirely. Except the fun we have with the game comes from the dance. When we finish a set and lose, we want to be able to look back and think “man, if I just pressured him better in the corner or blocked high on the leg sweep I would’ve won” not “wow, I shouldn’t have dared to interact with the Steve player playing creative mode in the corner by himself”.

[@ken7007]

@@ReconNarwhal cause smash is a poor competitive game but people insist that other fighting game logic applies to smash when you are actually fighting game winning gimmicks & constant RPS So the "counterplay" to it is just not to interact like it's a Arena fighter smash have more in common with those more then anything. But since 1 character isn't running the game they fine with it. Maybe why that doesn't happen because the game has too many damn gimmicks/cheese & characters for 1 character to realistically consistently deal with. That's what substitute for "balance" like it's so bad it just loops back around to being "balance" I just call Smash situation the game.

[@surrealmeme8344]

@@ken7007 I personally haven’t met anybody who believes that traditional fighting game logic applies to smash, most of the people in the community believe it to be way different than a traditional fighting game, and that it should be treated as such. No one was arguing whether or not the game was good competitive material since that comes down to opinion, either way it has a competitive scene. I think it’s interesting how people have optimized mechanics and gameplay intended for a casual audience into a competitive setting, so if nothing else it is at the very least interesting.

[@TheAAJYu]

I think our memories of Smash 4 Bayonetta is what’s causing people to think about banning characters like Steve and Kazuya so seriously all of a sudden. There was a lot of talk about banning Bayo back in Smash 4, but players reasoned that it was just a matter of learning the matchup. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, and by the time people realized that she was doing more harm to the game than good, it was already too late. People regret not being able to nip the weed in the bud when they could, hence why they’re erring on the side of caution. Personally, I think a better argument could be made for Steve getting the ban over Kazuya. Kazuya was always viewed as good, but not top tier according to top players. His horrible neutral, disadvantage, and matchups means that there’s at least some semblance of a method to dealing with him. We need to remember that most players who use Kazuya also have other characters they can use in less than favorable matchups. Steve was supposed to be balanced by having to constantly mine for better materials, but as we’ve found out recently, Steve by default is already very good starting out and only gets better as the match goes on. And while his play style does take some getting used to, it’s nowhere near as execution heavy as Kazuya.

[@nathanlevesque7812]

preemptive ban =/= caution I just want Steve planking gone. Mining resources off stage can severely limit interaction which is anti-competitive. Neither character is disrupting competitive consistency, like when >50% of brackets was Bayo, forcing stages to be banned like with Brawl Metaknight, or have one-touch stocks off a grab that can literally be done one handed by someone who has never held a controller before as with Melee Icies.

[@harrylane4]

@@nathanlevesque7812 you’ve posted this like a dozen times. Literally just learn the matchup, and planking stops being a big deal. If you’re better than the Steve, planking doesn’t matter.

[@nathanlevesque7812]

@@harrylane4 Imagine thinking my argument was 'OOH PLANKING TOO GOOD DURRR'. Have you tried using your brain?

[@N12015]

And it didn't help that one of the best Bayonetta mains of the time was a blackmailer who used his "condition" as a cheap shield and singlehandedly ruined EVO 2018.

[@RTGXII]

@@harrylane4 yup, you're definitely a casual

[@mr.einwood2384]

Some people tend to mistake frustration for unfairness. However, there are cases where frustration IS unfairness, and it is when a character has unbalanced properties. Maybe pointing out Smash is not the perfect example (since this game was never ment to be competitive, but literally a party game), yet I totally agree with those that say that fighting games should be as much balanced as possible. A lot of people think "adapt and stop crying", but in my opinion that's a particularly toxic point of view: the fact that some characters give a better time in ease in proportion to strength, overturned damage, cheap tools, or any other (by fault) stupid characteristic, just means that using weaker characters is basically useless, unless you're particularly fond to them, and/or you just don't care if you win or lose. But again, in a competitive scenario, that's idiocy, in particular when those characters are dlc ones, and you'll have to pay extra for them.

[@DWN037]

Hit the nail on the head with the first half, but I have a pretty big problem with the second half- _"Adapt and stop crying" is literally how you get good at the game_ Generally people will have more fun if they're able to learn how to succeed and put it into practice, yeah? Also, buying the DLC doesn't instantly make you the best player in the game. Someone playing a 'weaker' character will almost always beat someone person using DLC or top-tiers if they just play better. Ultimate _isn't_ at the stage where one specific fighter dominates the scene, we're at the stage where a number of good _players_ are getting results because of their skill with their mains. If "accepting BS and adapting to overcome it" is apparently a toxic piece of advice, what's the alternative? I'm not going to tell a new player to pick up [top-tier they don't like] as a crutch, but I don't want them to keep losing and hate the game because of it.

[@mr.einwood2384]

@@DWN037 Ok, I'll be more specific then, starting with the dlc stuff. I want to make clear that I didn't necessarily wanted to take Smash as an example for stronger dlc characters (like I said, Smash was never meant to be competitive), but I can take for example Tekken 7, where a lot of dlc characters are actually top 10 or so. But the dlc topic doesn't interest me that much, actually. About my complaints for stop crying and git gud, the bullshit op characteristics, etc: I KNOW very well that a player skill makes most of the difference in a match, and that's undeniable. One must focus and try to overcome they're flaws in the game of course, and become a good player itself. Getting better is definitely not a toxic goal for sure. HOWEVER, giving up to the fact that a player has a concrete advantage on the other only because they choose a better character from the start, THAT is bs. I can learn the match up, training the character itself, frame data, optimal punishes, anything you want: nothing changes the fact that, in a COMPETITIVE SCENARIO, with titles and/or even money involved, the other player has an advantage on me. Period. Balance inconsistencies are a thing in fg, I can't deny that. I'm sure it's hard for the creators to make the game as equal as possible. But the truth is that they make op characters intentionally so, often ignoring the need for the players for a balance. And since the only technical solution would be for everyone to use only the strongest characters (which is actually not a solution at all, since a lot of characters can't even deal against their own bullshit), than that would mean seeing always the same fights. That's honestly something I don't want for the future of fighting games.

[@DWN037]

Alright, I see. Cleared up then.

[@ken7007]

"But it can be played both ways" thank you This is just not a good competitive game people have to literally groom their self's into thinking all the BS & dying at what's practically full health cause someone without thinking just mash 1 button in your direction & call it skill base. Then people keep trying to compare this cheese fest with other fighting games the just "adapt" to what exactly game a random mash fest when some times the right answer was to actually mash with no thought let the overturned move carry you through it was made that way for little Jimmy But off the technicality little Jimmy isn't winning every tournament it means it's fine lol

[@DWN037]

@@ken7007 win a local tournament only by thoughtlessly button-mashing and I'll believe you

[@freddiesimmons1394]

While it is possible that some of the Kazuya combos are coming with bad di or a missed tech, getting hit at *20* and having to play perfectly or else you lose a stock is a nonsense risk reward ratio.

[@abzeromusic]

Welcome to Marvel. Zero loops anyone?

[@freddiesimmons1394]

@gospel gordon yes, I also think that's pretty distasteful. If it were up to me, he wouldn't have that and should just get some minor generic buffs to compensate. The games lack of di at low knockback is a problem

[@freddiesimmons1394]

@@abzeromusic I'll take your word for it lol

[@freddiesimmons1394]

@gospel gordon but there's a difference between if you mis space a move you get combed for 35, and if you don't hit right di you take death

[@freddiesimmons1394]

@gospel gordon what's "fromsoft" Actually, this sort of thing is also why I have trouble returning to melee/pm

[@metainstincts85]

“Largest moveset of all time” **proceeds to use the least moves to win a match**

[@AshenDemon]

Honestly so true. Kazuya mains don't use half his moveset. Simply go fight a CPU Kazuya and you'll remember "Oh yeah this character does have more moves then ewgf"

[@specialbeamvegeta4059]

@@AshenDemon the CPU Kazuya is so clean I swear

[@AshenDemon]

@@specialbeamvegeta4059 Bro I hate Kazuya's but the only Kazuya that I've ever gotten hyped about was the CPU.

[@battlericky17]

Your channel got recommended to me after looking up some smash tiers and instead i just ended up loving the way you discuss smash.

[@aruretheincomprehensible20]

It's not simply a matter of having a lack of agency. It's about the characters having a play pattern that encourages non-interaction, outside of 64 Pikachu and Brawl Meta Knight (who are just overtuned) With Melee Ice Climbers, getting a grab guarantees that you can take a stock. This discourages the other player from approaching you because the risk of getting grabbed is only relevant when you're near the Ice Climbers themselves. With Steve, his entire gameplan is built around gathering a resource that encourages not interacting with your opponent to build up that resource. His ability to use blocks to prevent his opponent's approaches then enables him to play a defensive game that's difficult to deal with and is highly rewarding when it works. I feel like most of Smash Ultimate's roster falls into one of these categories of non-interaction regardless of how "frustrating" they are to face. Comeback mechanics like Terry's Go Button, Lucario's Aura, and Wario's Waft make it frustratingly easy to lose off of one or two mistakes after winning for 90% of the match. Mechanics that enforce windows of power like Arsene, Limit Break, or Gyro (since R.O.B. has some seriously powerful combos with it) discourage interaction with those characters until the tool is no longer in play. Most zoners discourage interaction through the effectiveness of their ranged options, while characters with powerful reflectors discourage interaction with zoners (since they are usually balanced around having powerful projectiles to a fault). Characters with limited mobility like Little Mac or Gannondorf are encouraged to not interact because it they have strengths in other areas that makes not interacting with them considerably easier and more consistent. I feel like Mark Rosewater, lead designer of Magic the Gathering, put it best in his 2016 GDC talk when he talks about designing Tibalt. For context, Tibalt is widely regarded as one of the worst planeswalkers in the game, and Rosewater explains that the reason Tibalt was so bad is because Wizards of the Coast decided to try and make a 2-mana planeswalker for the sake of trying to make a 2-ana planeswalker. In other words, they wanted to make something interesting instead of something fun. I feel like that's what Smash Ultimate has tried to do with a lot of its character designs: create something interesting instead of something fun. For example, it's interesting to see how characters like Kazuya, Steve, or Smash 4 Bayonetta have their tools translated from their original games to Smash, but it's not at all fun to play against these characters since their mechanics fundamentally broke these games.

[@Lexicon865]

Imo it feels like the reason why the FP2 characters don't feel "fun" despite it being interesting to many is because they're really some of the only ones in the 89-character roster where their tools are actually representative from their games of origin or play like their games of origin while the rest of the cast have these made up moves that come with archaic/outdated design choices, and I hope the next game reboots that and has every character in the roster feel more like you're playing their games of origin, even if it means trimming down the roster to say 30+ characters or so. I feel like that could potentially not only make the rest of the roster actually interesting, but would make things more fun as well as opposed to Ultimate where 8 characters are interesting in terms of mechanics but feel broken and the other 81 or so feel so homogenized and dull that you can get away with having the same gameplan for like three or four of your mains or so. Idk

[@aruretheincomprehensible20]

@@Lexicon865 I meant that the characters in question weren't fun to play against rather than fun to play. For a multiplayer game you need to consider the experience for both players, not just your own, and while I'm sure these new characters are fun to play they aren't fun to play against. The problem is these characters play so much like their game of origin that they fundamentally break the core game mechanics of Smash. Saying Kazuya is playing Tekken and Steve is playing Minecraft is just like saying Jack-o isn't playing Xrd or Gargos isn't playing Killer Instinct: they're playing a character with a game plan that's not fun to play against and ignores the multiplayer aspect of the game. Characters should be localized into Smash instead of being translated, because that's what makes the game fun for both players. For example, Captain Falcon has a completely original moveset relative to his home games, but he still emphasizes F-Zero's importance of speed with his fast grounded movement, and is still a better translation from his origin to Smash than Kazuya and Steve are.

[@Lexicon865]

@@aruretheincomprehensible20 Yeah no I disagree with that. Smash gameplay is honestly "weird" that I don't think characters taking the same route as the base game characters would work. It just makes for a boring, homogenized platform fighter and at that point they might as well just not use all these IPs. Every character should be more like Kazuya and Steve while also tweaked to fit Smash's core gameplay. Give everybody a gimmick and in the end, nobody will have a gimmick. Outside of it being better representative of each characters' series of origin, it'd also give them more options for their severely limited kits. Maybe if it was another fighting game like T7 sure, but Smash has been riddled with so many dated design choices that I don't think having Kazuya's and Steve's moveset be closer to like the Brawl characters' moveset would do anything besides make them not as annoying to fight, but at the cost of the game being more boring

[@aruretheincomprehensible20]

@@Lexicon865 I'm not sure that you're understanding me. Kazuya, Steve, and Smash 4 Bayonetta are all fundamentally broken because they play too much like their original game without any regard for the game they're being put into. You can find great examples of this done well in all sorts of fighting games ranging from Capcom's VS series to Ori and Shovel Knight in Rivals of Aether. Kazuya and Steve are so lazily taken from their games of origin and added into Smash Ultimate that they fundamentally break the game, and if Smash 4 is any indication will kill the competitive scene within a year or two.

[@AshenDemon]

@@Lexicon865 Hot take designing characters as they play in their original games doesn't really work well in a fighting game unless they are already from a fighting game and even still that requires some changes.

[@h-man1371]

Tilt is a big factor as well especially when you fight a decent main of a character for the first time and get destroyed from not knowing the matchup. For example, when I lose to Warios repeatedly online, I'm not thinking of how to counter him, I'm questioning why a fast, combo heavy, short ranged character has mechanics that allow and encourage him to camp.

[@ED-gw9rg]

Wario only gets one fart to kill you with - if you have more than one stock left, there's still a slim chance of victory. Hell, he might get too greedy and miss the fart entirely. Some of the DLC characters, though... - Joker's gameplan is to camp and bide his time, then use Arsene to mop the floor with his opponent. It's loyal to the approach to Palace Rulers in P5, but incredibly aggravating to fight. (Or, y'know, he straight up combos you into next week without Arsene anyways, because he's a fast character with good aerials...) - Terry and Kazuya share similar comeback mechanics, being the ability to whip out their strong attacks at higher percentages. Have fun losing if you have a lead against them!

[@NamelessViking01]

@@ED-gw9rg actually Wario doesn't need a full charged fart yo kill you. At 50% charge it can kill almost all characters at 100%. You can get roughly 2-3 50% fart in a match.

[@Harmless_Music]

I believe you nailed it on the head. Even with the DLC fighters (notoriously Kazuya and Steve), I think it’s a case where the DLC fighters challenge fundamentals that do not have immediate, obvious counterplay. Like you said regarding Kazuya, his weaknesses are not obvious, nor is his defensive counterplay. Steve is a more difficult case to argue for, due to his versatility and power, as counterplay is related to their moves more than their core character mechanics. It’s a really short analysis for a very tough, dynamic question, dwarfed by all you said in sixteen minutes. I liked your approach a lot in this video.

[@moviegametime3891]

I actually think fighting Sonic and Kazuya is annoying, but not so bad or hard, fortunately. Against Sonic, you need to do a few things: use projectiles to stop his spin dash, and if you don't have a projectile, try jumping literally on top of him before he releases his spin dash. Sonic can't hit you if you are above him (though you need a very quick character in the air). And when he uses Homing attack, you have to either wait under a platform, or jump using a strong, long lasting aerial. That way you force him to stop the spamming and fight you up close like a man. For Kazuya, you need a character with good spacing and frame data who can bait and punish nicely. Kazuya players wil ALWAYS go for two things: EWGF, and grab. But fortunately, his frame data is not as broken as the other shotos, so you CAN actually punish him if he misses any of those two commands. Also, elite smash Kazuyas have the habit of spot dodging too much. That also makes him quite easy to read and punish. For Steve.... Ugh that guy is indeed annoying. I can't believe they made him have 0-60% combos that are so easy to do and basically impossible to escape from. And those strong smash attacks. Seriously, Steve feels like it was made for anyone wanting to win with the smallest possible effort.

[@salsathemonkey22]

Extremely low IQ take on Steve

[@christianramirez3860]

As a sonic main, I agree and respect that. I will say as an add on that fighting against sonic requires patience and stage control, by control I mean stay center stage and play neutral from time to time while adapting to Sonic's playstyle and mix ups. Also do avoid any energy drinks as it can lead to anxiety which can cause misinputs.

[@moviegametime3891]

@TrainerblueTube Yeah, my take was mostly directed at the "annoying" Sonics, which is what the video mostly refers to. For Sonics that don't spam like that, definetly it's a whole different match. I occasionally run into Sonic players who are actually fun to play against because, as you said, not all Sonics will sit there charging the spin dash and homing attack, so the strategy changes there, naturally.

[@avanagenda5840]

as a sonic main I agree. I don't camp as sonic or spam b bc I don't want to be annoying. A tip is just to wait untill you can attack him. When I'm not him and go against him that works a lot.

[@Nanadyne]

Smash as a whole is frustrating to play on a competitive level. The game at its core is casual oriented, even if Nintendo has thrown a couple bones toward the competitive side of things, I don't think they're particularly interested in going much further.

[@ayar2]

smash is mostly competitive friendly, but not competitive centric.

[@RandomElk58]

Combine all that with the horrible input lag that you receive during online fights, and you have a competitive experience that is not very fulfilling.

[@vivelespatat2670]

@@RandomElk58 I love having a 40 frame delay Jab

[@ken7007]

Yup but they never want to except that Smash is bout as competitive as a Arena fighter the cheesy balance & all

[@daeryk6424]

They try to get rid of every competitive aspect where possible in each game.

[@blues4509]

The reason why I don't enjoy ultimate is not only because I think it just overall feels bad to play competitively like buffering, mashing being so good, defensive options being so bad, sticky platforms. Not to mention edgeguarding being discouraged because recoveries are so good on average that you're likely to get reverse edgeguarded or losing stage control so you're better off letting them come back and ledge trapping. You also have the topic of this video, characters that are so painful to play against being so common. Even the bad characters like Mac. For so many characters in this game the optimal way to interact is to not interact at all. All the things I mentioned culminated in me getting tired of the game because it boils down to a bunch of waiting around being scared of your opponent in every situation. I dropped it over year ago and I've been playing since brawl, casually even before that first smash game I just can't keep playing.

[@ken7007]

Exactly but this is what they call "balance" where mashing will unintentionally kill at early % cause move is over tuned or janky & the "counterplay" is to abused how easy it is too play lame Even the casual side abuse this game to no end cause it let's you get away with it It's only so much you can do about how the game works now this time the people that play lame have way's to fight back. There is no Middle Ground with this game Doesn't feel like smash anymore i'm done with it too brain dead for me

[@apotheosis4916]

The most frustrating characters in this game online are game and watch, Steve, Kazuya, and little Mac. While I can beat them all, they get annoying to play against repeatedly.

[@Joe_334]

I miss tricking Little Mac players off the ledge. It was so funny seeing them miss with the haymakers, lol.

[@whispersmusic6173]

Little Mac aint even nearly as bad as the other characters you mentioned

[@Not_Mady_]

Bro I can't stand Pyra and Mythra. All u have to do is spam ur neutrals, and u can I get a free win 💀

[@juniperrodley9843]

@@whispersmusic6173 I mean, they never said he was as bad, they just said he's also a character they find frustrating

[@potsandpineapples3319]

Bro Ness and Sonic exist

[@grantbridge22]

Man it’s nice playing Sephiroth, probably the only relatively well balanced character in Fighter Pass 2. He’s not annoying beyond belief like the rest of Pass 2, mostly being an honest swordie with a little more range and some pretty good projectiles.

[@DarkworldLP]

Yes I feel this too, he is not as easy to play as many people think and also is really not so annoying to fight against too (which is a good sign because even fair characters feel quite annoying to fight against sometimes)!

[@SydneySininen]

Sephiroth makes me upset because he feels too honest lmao

[@wxbrainiac]

yeah all the characters in fighter pass 1 dont feel bad to play against but fighter pass 2 characters feel so unbalanced and broken its like they tried to hard to put other games into smash and not keeping it smash

[@kirisai]

I thin he is very good balanced mostly But his up-air is too big i cant deal with it

[@grantbridge22]

@@kirisai I mean, yeah up air is his one move with next to no weaknesses. He kinda needs it too with how slow most of his other moves are.

[@grimsdol4665]

to me i think the most infuriating part is that when you go up against cheesy characters like ness or min min is that it allows seemingly worse players still get the win against you, and then the issue of just playing as a character with a bad recovery means that theirs so many more infuriating characters to fight against, imagine playing as little mac or cloud and having to fight a kirby who'll just drag you across the stage to your death in a single combo or getting sucked in and thrown under the stage where you died at 20% becuase you didn't mash hard enough

[@Mon-Ki]

I think Kazuya is probably the most undeserving of a ban, just based on what I've heard he feels more like Sonic/G&W levels of frustration rather than being a separate tier. A lot of the players that do well with him use him as a secondary, you don't really see people solo main him and perform very well. That indicates to me that the counterplay to Kazuya isn't *that* unreasonable. I will say a lot of times people wont put in the time or effort required to try and develop counterplay against a character, so while I fully agree that complaints shouldn't be written off, it can be kinda difficult to fully get behind those complaints.

[@lifestyle807]

To be fair, smash is a game with a crazy amount of characters, so much so that people eventually give up on learning how to counterplay some other characters. With 70 other characters to worry about, it gets difficult to have to keep track of all of the counterplay and gameplans for each player. This is why most of the top tiers in the game are the ones that have the strongest gameplans and force the most counterplay, since the player doesn't have to have too much matchup knowledge to perform well against most of the roster. The thing that makes this so much worse is player expression. Not only do you have to keep up with general character counterplay, you also have to develop counters to each player's style of play, which hard enough to do with a small roster, let alone a roster with 70 characters. This issue really shines with Steve since the game gives him so much freedom and creativity that playing a different player can feel like you're playing against a whole new character entirely. Not to mention the endless amounts of setups and traps that he has and you have to keep mental track of. Couple that with the fact that the character is actually just very strong and can dish out tonnes of damage and can kill off 1-2 interactions while gaining an advantage by playing keep away makes it understandable why people are asking for a ban. Sonic is a similar character since he also has the tools to allow him to exhibit many different styles of play, all while predominantly being a campy character like Steve. In the end I think the community doesn't have an issue with characters like Sonic and Steve. But probably more with the issue that these characters are so strong and their main/strongest method of playing is keep away. That being said I don't think anyone deserves a ban, but they probably just need to be patched.

[@voltorian-minecraft]

EWGF is a full invuln burst option that can lead to a kill from zero. the risk-reward is massively out of proportion

[@aowawa]

@@voltorian-minecraft true but its hard to execute and is whif punishable

[@voltorian-minecraft]

@@aowawa have you not seen that clip of the kazuya doing like 5 ewgf in a row and the wolf barely being able to do anything against it? it's not the easiest thing to punish and again, the risk-reward is way out of proportion. kazuya defenders always suggest poking him, but that's just that, a poke. if kazuya whiffs he takes like 10%, if he doesn't he takes a stock. also imo it's not good game design to put something that good in the game and justify it with a mechanical skill wall, at least not the extremes that ewgf is at. one, it's a 3 frame window, so it's not the hardest thing to do. two, at a high level, a mechanical skill wall isn't going to matter as much to the players

[@magsetienne6680]

@@voltorian-minecraft my brother in Christ play with a grapple style, Kazuya can be easy thrown into disadvantage and anyone with a spamable projectile eats him. And it is extremely easy to punish anything Kazuya does, if your punish is doing 10 percent stop rapid jabbing

[@Gamber63]

The frustration comes down to not urself doing something that is in their favor, but u forced to not interacting at all when they simply do nothing (yes, Yone)

[@LuxTensyn]

I feel like a big problem with Min Min that this video didn't (and to be honest should have) addressed is that she is quite literally unwinnable for some characters. DK, Incineroar and Little Mac lose at the character select screen. That to me speaks volumes of the problem with her design.

[@TheEmperorGulcasa]

I think that a lot of those are characters that themselves just have too few good tools and needed a tuneup, more than Minmin being that broken. She's a very silly character who does her own gameplan, but she's been hit hard enough that she's not that dominant or unbeatable anymore.

[@Sickmmaner]

These are all characters with absolutely terrible recoveries against Min Min who is probably the best in the game at ledge trapping. I hate Min Min as well, but that's what secondaries are for; No one is going to go completely even against anyone in this game. Some characters just completely lose against others.

[@ayar2]

thats what secondaries are for, besides, in the case of DK, Sakurai said himself that MinMin has advantage over big characters like him, (plus he's more of a free for all character, like mac) so picking DK against a good MinMin player is basically asking to be clobbered.

[@Cadesworth]

That isn't just a min min problem, tho. There's impossible matchups like that all through the game, min min only one offender. Samus vs. Olimar is my favorite unwinnble matchup lmao

[@ayar2]

@@Cadesworth what about Rosalina vs Ness, he's dead the moment he´s off the stage.

[@MrLinkkid]

The fact Steve was added at all when other characters deserved it more than block punch guy, and no I will shame you if you play them as well as pyra/mythra.

[@mr.incognito2687]

If this is any consolation, I made a Sonic ragequit on a stream with my Luigi. I kept spamming fireballs and zair, plus tacking on 30-40% of damage everytime he got close enough to grab. This is the problem with Ultimate. You can’t have fun so you just now need to hope your anti-fun is stronger than your opponent’s anti-fun. There’s rarely ever a truly fun match at this point.

[@ibechuu9695]

Online matches does not count. No offense

[@Krona-fb4dn]

@@ibechuu9695 honestly a problem with that is that Online IS a major part of the game. More than any previous smash game and without all the shiny new reveal trailers, balance, or any good single player content to note of, all you really have left are Local Multiplayer, and Online.

[@greatobikili4858]

If I had a nickel everytime a smash player hit a desk I would have a bunch of nickels.

[@Hugo_Prolovski]

I think Ultimate itself is a mostly frustrating experience and some characters just add even more frustration

[@ayar2]

ironic since smash bros as a series was made to have a good time with your friends laughing off each other mistakes.

[@seokism]

​@@ayar2 it still is exactly that, not everyone plays competitive smash

[@ChocBlock]

When you play Mega Man as much as me, you become the one who knocks.

[@adiactpsn976]

Only 1 out of 5 online matches are against a non-dlc char now. It's so annoying even when you manage to win.

[@Y0U2BER]

The FG characters require at least some execution to succeed in such a dominating fashion. Other dlc characters get op nonsense for little to no effort. The only dlc fighters that don't have some overwhelming easy mode jank (to some degree) are Plant and Banjo. Those 2 have basic kits more akin to a traditional smash moveset (outside of wonder wing I guess).

[@jayceallen6530]

Sonic getting a new moveset is literally all i want, hes such a cool character and he gets enough hate already

[@onehittalon789]

Sonic's haters need to get gud. That's all I'm saying

[@cloviepounders6703]

Meanwhile samus' moveset is 20+years old... 😂

[@orangeslash1667]

@@cloviepounders6703 Caption Falcon's moveset hasn't changed why should Samus?????

[@MrWwechampion333]

sometimes the frustration comes from a lack of valid counter play. like a steve planking on the ledge or a kazuya just spamming electric over and if you engage you either die or get put into disadvantage. i don’t think it’s a problem with the player base and more a problem with the game

[@THEGREATMAX]

Power creep. They wanted DLC to be the best but didn't want another Sm4sh Bayonetta so they gave all of them annoying moves

[@Crazybark]

down tilt the electric.

[@SyCaustik]

@@Crazybark *attempts to down tilt* Gets the hit gets 40% they electric again I die

[@Crazybark]

@@SyCaustik who are you, dk?

[@SyCaustik]

@@Crazybark Dk ain’t getting 40 off of dtilt mah

[@MyBebopBlues]

Personally while I like the inclusion of all the characters from the DLC’s, I dont like how most of them need to have a “shtick” even if its fitting for their character

[@doctordice2doctordice210]

Most ult characters do, it’s what makes the cast great

[@AcidArmy_]

Every ult character can be said to have a gimmick.

[@wxbrainiac]

@@AcidArmy_ idk characters like greninja or chrom or any character like that dont have a extremely special thing like shulk or sora or many other newer characters do but they feel like they stay true their original franchise while fitting into smash well you dont need to have a brand new feature or a all new move type to be a new or good character

[@ritter3723]

yeah, tbh, I feel like one of the only characters whos gimmick got transferred well in smash is olimar, as while yes, the pikmin are very powerful when used correctly, it also puts olimar at a disadvantage if used incorrectly

[@Lexgamer]

"Groundless to complain how players win the game." "There's nothing morally right or wrong about how you make it to the top." "If a means to victory through a certain way exists then it's entirely allowed and should not be a source of shame or criticism." Dude, no one believes any of the above quotes except for you, if they did, they wouldn't whine about me using all stages and items, lol.

[@bulb9970]

That was the most wordy way to say “They made the DLC characters too good”

[@Susinator-yn6ow]

Lmao

[@ayar2]

or pay to win

[@babyleader]

I thought the point was that they aren't too good, but they overcentralize the gameplay and make it all about themselves.

[@TheGreatSammyJack]

I think my biggest issue with the "Frustrating" characters is my own character choices. It turns out that all of my favorites to play are no higher than mid-tiers, but I love playing them. Unfortunately, because they are mid-tier, they lack a lot of options when it comes to dealing with more "privilaged" DLC characters, and it's always uphill battles for me. Sure, I could play an equally powerful character, but I just don't want to. The only time it seems I can win against an equally skilled opponent, is when I am firing on all cylinders for every opening and crushing with momentum. If I slip up once, I'm dead. But the frustrating DLC's can slip up as many times as they want, and can still pull through. Never mind you had that perfect punish on any other character, but it turns out Kazuya is invulnerable/intangible from frames 1-22.

[@kirisai]

I love playing dk I dont think i have to say more if i slip up one time im dead or 80% higher than before

[@AshenDemon]

Haha, I fucked up hitting Kazuya while he's intangible guess I die at 2%...lol skill issue. Fuck Kazuya and anyone who defends him.

[@roamingtheinternet8652]

Like what’s the point of me playing who I like if the dlc can do everything I can do much better.

[@squeaks5677]

“you cost 5 bucks, the opponent is fucked” -Sun Tzu

[@AshenDemon]

My other comment is inaccurate. Because in order to get to 2% kazuya would have to hit you, and I doubt Kazuya has a single move that does less than 15%

[@pandabanaan9208]

I fully get the using the best strategy argument espescially when money is involved, but I do think there are certain things that kinda cross the line, in melee hitting your opponent once and then ledge stalling and abusing ledge invincebility for the entire match is technically optimal, but that strategy is banned for a reason

[@johnsonbro4944]

And the thing is, these characters CAN be fixed. I've posted about it somewhere else before (not gonna do it here because of time) but it's possible. Some of their movements should be toned down (Kazuya), some others would need an almost entire fight-style overhaul (Sonic), but yes, they are fixable if you put some mind into it.

[@RamzaBeoulves]

The game has at least 50 characters too many to begin with IMO Combine with the fact half of them rely on gimmicks can only lead to frustrating gameplay that's questionably suitable for competition

[@ken7007]

This game is the most "balance" smash Lmao it's always funny when i see that

[@idith7403]

I really don’t understand the frustration against Kazuya. He takes tons of skill/practice to pull off combos that you can mix up DI on and has a horrible disadvantage state, and overall isn’t that good since he has a lot of matchups which are very difficult. It’s mainly Riddles who’s super good with him and actually gets results. People would much rather blame the character for their loss rather than themselves

[@whos_raz6814]

This^

[@JosephJohns-xi1qb]

I suppose it may come down to frustration at having a lead and getting stocks deleted so easily or something like that. Obviously not ban worthy, but I can see why it might be frustrating. I'm not a fan of his control scheme being so foreign for Smash. What happened to simple to control?

[@idith7403]

@@JosephJohns-xi1qb Luigi can also 0 to death from a grab, but nobody complains even though he can delete a stock. For the controls it’s because it’s supposed to try to mimic Tekken, the game Kazuya is from. If you’ve ever played Tekken it has some very difficult combos

[@danielkogler676]

First of all, Tea, Ferps, Tarik and Axiom are also doing really well with the character, it's not just Riddles.Secondly, just because something is "hard", it doesn't make it less annoying. On top of that, Kazuya's gameplan stays the same forever, so he is technically hard, but his neutral game plays on its own. To mix Up DI works sometimes, but if you still see top players getting consistantly zero to death't, it doesn't seem like it's too easy to get out of his combos. You just have to play a "don't get hit a single time or you will instantly die" kinda game, and that's what annoys me.

[@idith7403]

@@danielkogler676 even so that’s a very small amount of players that sometimes get results with Kaz, and they usually have him as a secondary so it’s not like this character is extremely oppressive in tournaments. The reason why you see these players consistently getting 0 to deaths is cause they’re amazing and can call out the DI switch ups, however they do also drop the combo fairly often too, you just don’t see it in any highlight clips cause it’s not as exciting. To base a character off of something only 5 people can sometimes do is just confirmation bias. Also the character is countered extremely heavily by so many character archetypes

[@themidnightotaku22]

None of those characters frustrate me to go up against... except for Sonic mains. I have no clue how they got so good at the character, I always get meteor-ed off the stage when I go for a homing attack.

[@onehittalon789]

You just gotta use your speed for your offensive advantage. If you can't predict them, practice playing against them against a lv9 cpu.

[@themidnightotaku22]

Okay@@onehittalon789I’ll try... being faster on the offensive next time.

[@onehittalon789]

@@themidnightotaku22 glad I could help. I also ended up inventing a new tech for sonic that no one's ever seen lol

[@TakeAway69]

If a kazuya manages to land 4 ewgf i think he deserves to take a stock If a steve lands 1 cart on you i dont think he deserves a kill confim

[@muby102]

Electric isn't that hard to land. It only takes a bit of practice in training with getting used to the input

[@ILoveToEatRed40]

@@muby102 major cap then why do you see kazuya pros dropping electrics in tournament

[@muby102]

@@ILoveToEatRed40 that's just human error. It happens in tekken tournaments or combo videos in tekken with super precise execution too when some kazuya players will drop and electric and it'll be wgf instead

[@TakeAway69]

@@muby102 ok sure but even with that logic steve needs alot less then kazuya to get kills

[@minixlemonade]

@@muby102 Smash players see one baby easy input that uses more than one direction and hit the hills lol

[@ados1280]

I think most of the frustration with especially Steve and Kazuya is that they force a more non-interactive playstyle. As their risk/reward ratio is incredibly skewed. So you shouldn't risk interacting with them or you may lose your stock. Steve does it both ways though, he wants to camp and not interact so he gets diamonds faster, and when he has diamond, interacting with him becomes too risky so you're discouraged from approaching. It feels frustrating not just for players but spectators as well. I fear the community will eventually treat them similarly to Smash 4 Bayo even though they aren't as bad as she was. And the toxicity in the community will gradually rise to a boiling point.

[@evan8895]

i agree, i dont think it will be long until people are "throwing crabs" at steve mains

[@hainamnguyen1121]

On the other hand, steve mains Need to camp because everything he does ties to resources. And when he finally get the diamonds and golds, his powers skyrockets like Joker. So he forces you to play his game, be aggressive with him early on and wasting his resources, which is annoying, but beatable. People just don't get the matchup yet, and i hope to see people start adapting to him. There's already counters and strats to force interactions with him.

[@MetaGamingDojo]

@@hainamnguyen1121 you don't want to know who I main, but thanks for all this info anyway... *(hahaha! I'll take the smash throne, and no one can stop meee! The world shall know pain! ThE wOrLd ShAll kNow pAiN! THE WORLDD SHALLL KNOOW PAINNN🔥💥🔥💥🔥😈)*

[@mehgamer467]

I mean you could argue that for any character with a strong punish game. Kazuya is no different than luigi, ice climbers, and other heavy combo characters that do a ton of damage with slow neutral, but massive pay off. He actively wants to get in your face tho and play the game. Thats more of an ultimate problem where camping is highly optimal. I've never seen ANY other fighting game communities say this about grapplers or big damage characters because you can't run away and actively camp people for long cause space is limited. Kazuya only encourages you to play carefully and slow down a bit more. Steve tho ACTIVELY forces a non-interactive play style because his mining. Thats entirely different.

[@YOSSARIAN313]

No character in ultimate is close to as busted as smash4 bayo

[@laneminor6240]

The problem with this game is that the frustration comes from so many angles other than 'oh I just haven't practiced enough' A good chunk of the roster is based in spam. K Rool, Samus, Dark Samus, Ness, Lucas, Simon, Richter, Young Link, and Toon Link all projectile spam. A good chunk of the roster have aerial carries. Pikachu, Palutena, Marth, Lucina, Roy, Chrom can just hit you once, carry you to the edge, and edgeguard you to high percent and death. A good number of characters have obscenely powerful attacks. Min Min, Pyra/Mythra, Sora, Sephoroth, Kazuya, Donkey Kong, Captain Falcon, Simon, Ricter... all very great smash attacks/sweet spots that don;t take too much effort to land. A good number of players are based in camping. Steve, Sonic, Pikachu, Inkling... Add these factors to laggy, shit online play and joycon drift forcing you to buy a new controller if you want a chance at a good experience make me want to smash my physical copy of this game with a hammer.

[@ekh.123]

One way I deal with frustrating characters (especially the DLC privileged ones) is I take time to learn how to play them so that I can learn what they generally like or don't like. I hate Cloud when I play Mario, so I'm trying to pick up Cloud to see how he likes to play. I despise Wolf, so I try out Wolf to get a real feel for his threat range. For Steve.... Idk, pocket Villager because this character is actually kinda hard lol But when dealing with frustration during a match, it's important to not get tilted, thus you end up playing noticeably worse. I try to take deep breaths and quickly decipher what I'm doing wrong, and even if the salt level goes overload, I still thank my opponent for the matches. I acknowledge that it gives me more stuff to work on, at least.

[@SaturnDreamingofMercury]

Competitive video gaming in general is frustrating to me. I love casual gaming both single player and with/against friends, but once competitions begins getting formal, I just lose interest. I play to unwind from the real world. Granted I don't like unbalanced games anymore than the next person, and I filter them out readily anyway. But if we're talking a _relatively_ balanced game (as I think SSBU is) and I still get to the point where my fun is being dictated because I find to it necessary to parse any apparent exploitable characters, moves sets, abilities, etc then I'm losing the fun spirit of the gaming experience and I got to step back and remind myself to relax. I get competitions and tournaments are things, and there are folks into them and as such the aforementioned matters will factor in at least a little for their purposes. But I'm seeing recent and current tier lists that definitely do not agree on the S level placement of the characters and do not always include the objectionable culprits. Indeed some complained about either in the video or comments as problematic are below even some A tiers.

[@AshenDemon]

Why the hell are you here then. How is this relevant to the topic, if you don't like competitive games don't click on a video talking about issues in the competitive side of smash. It's that easy.

[@TheHogfatherInvades]

I thought sonic was frustrating because you can't react to his stuff online, I've heard the pros think he's underwhelming when playing offline

[@cardboardtubeknight]

I literally stopped playing because of how unfun it was to even deal with Steve and kazuya over and over. Like it wasn’t even worth going online and bothering

[@doctordice2doctordice210]

Steve is essentially snake, a matchup that should be studied, but unlike snake people don’t have years worth experience against him yet, so a lot of the counter play is unrefined Sadly asking ult pros to lap extensively is like asking a melee player to shower lmao

[@sochifgc1493]

*asking a ultimate melee 64 brawl player to shower lmao

[@SpartanOfLuxon]

You had good points on many characters but Kazuya's advantage state is so hard to perfectly pull off in matches that more often then not you will get punished for wiffing the EWGF or Grab and then get comboed. He's not the slight bit frustrating to play against if you know what the player is fishing for and bait accordingly

[@christianramirez3860]

One thing I learned about fighting game characters I general is keeping a distance between you and your opponent (no I don't mean camping, rather... Social distance? Idk how to put it) go too far being near lege and they take control of the stage, stay too close and they'll punish or combo you, keep a gray distance and you'll have time to react and punish as well as likely survive more.

[@AshepEli-YT]

@@christianramirez3860 I think the word you were looking for is spacing

[@AshenDemon]

Irrelevant because no that's not how most *Good* Kazuyas are and two at the top level this is mastered so difficulty balance is not there with nothing else to balance it.

[@Glyphmoney]

This is a well crafted video that fairly represents both the pro and anti ban arguments, very well done!!

[@cheddarbub6324]

For me, the biggest issue with competitive Smash is degenerate gameplay. Every fighter has their own unique gimmick and options, which in turn encourages a certain type or multiple types of gameplay. This is a great feature in a vacuum, as it creates a competitive scene where we can watch hundreds of different and unique playstyles. Characters like Sonic, Steve and Kazuya are no exception and I’ve seen some incredibly unique and entertaining games with them. The problem is that these specific kinds of characters have garnered an immensely large following of players who utilize each of their low-effort playstyles. Sonic and Steve have disproportionate speed and zoning options in differing areas, which encourages camping, and Kazuya has special one-and-done “sweaty” combos that can end a stock from 0% extraordinarily easy. The large majority of players choose these playstyles because they’re easy enough to win with without putting in large amounts of training. I personally am very glad that Steve is in Smash and enjoy his moveset. I just wish that we had not been exposed to the braindead potential he and other characters can easily exhibit. Thanks for my talk of TED.

[@sakana8082]

I'm thoroughly enjoying this series!! As a suggestion, maybe you could cover Pichu's rise and fall in Ultimate? Not many seem to really talk about it, so I'd like to see it discussed more in depth!

[@axelvidal752]

Sounds like a great video idea. Poor Pichu :(

[@DoMorrMusic]

Just some thoughts I have about this. For Sonic, it kinda feels like deja vu. Jigglypuff in Melee and Sonic in Ultimate are very similar in terms of play style, with some notable differences (Sonic has better mobility but Jigglypuff has a top 5 main). For Kazuya, the top player in my region does main him, but fails to place well outside of our region, even in comparison to other players in the same region. While feeling unable to do anything is definitely frustrating, it’s weird that Falco, who also has “cutscene combos” isn’t as hated and is just seen as “cringe”. Despite Falco’s superior mobility (3 frame jumpsquat compared to Kazuya’s 7 and the highest jump in the game) Kazuya is more hated than Falco. However, there is counterplay (Isabelle is actually kinda good against him surprisingly). For Steve, he’s not meta-defining. Very good, yes, but not to the extent of Meta Knight in Brawl or Bayonetta in Smash 4 or Cloud in doubles. People clown on Izaw for saying Steve sucks, but Izaw does raise some (not a lot) points. Minecart is definitely the key to unlock the counterplay. I would go as far as to say that Minecart is overrated (but still very good). However, most of the outrage at Steve in my opinion comes from people just being too prideful.

[@TheEmperorGulcasa]

The thing about Smash Ultimate is that the frustrating and complained about characters have rotated around rather than sticking with one character (mostly due to patches, but also due to underdeveloped meta). Like Joker was consider op before pandemic, Minmin was considered degenerate especially in Japan pre nerf, Aegis was considered op and nerf worthy for a while, now it's Kazuya and Steve. People have always also disliked some just annoying to deal with characters like Sonic. Still, I think the fact that nothing has stood out and stayed standing out so far like Brawl Metaknight or 4 Bayo/Cloud, is indicative of Ultimate's relative health. Steve might be the one problem child just because strange tools offer a lot more potential to discover degenerate stuff that is frustrating or near impossible to properly combat. But he's a very difficult character to play and optimize and we've yet to see if his bs can be countered properly by more experienced opponents since his rise has been very recent. Up until now, Steves have mostly washed out of high level tournaments pretty early, indicating a possible large consistency issue. Kazuya I'd say is much less of an issue. He's got his one super bs move, but he's otherwise a kinda slow and easily comboable character and his special moves aren't that reliable. Sure when he gets you just right you're helpless, but against other top tiers he can end up the helpless one a lot of the time as he gets out neutraled and tossed around most of the match. He's a very swingy character, where you are either dominating him or he's dominating you and that can flip in an instant. I'd say Ultimate is currently in the best spot a smash game has ever been in and is quite good for a competitive game overall. Very little consolidation around roster usage at top levels currently with people repping who they believe in more than who is strongest and still winning.

[@artimist0315]

I have a very different analysis. The thing is people didn't stop complaining about Aegis or min min, it is just that with time, more and more characters are discovered to be unhealthy. Ultimate is maybe the most balanced game in the serie (even if honestly think this is more because there are too many characters to learn rather than because of fair balancing) but it's far from the best balanced. Character's kits are often either very basic or completely gimmicky, the first one not being that interesting and the second being frustrating to play against. Compare the situation with smash 4 where the complaints were about only 6 or 7 characters (bayo, cloud, diddy, rosa, ryu and sonic) with the rest of the roster considered relativly healthy, or melee where every character have multiple playstyles allowing you to get extremly creative and with only 2 characters considered really unfun (jigg and icies). You know which characters are almost universally hated in ultimate ? Yoshi, luigi, game and watch, sonic, olimar, rob, little mac, ryu, hero, banjo, byleth, min min, steve, aegis and kazuya, and that's not mentioning characters like Palutena or wario with their fair share of problems. That's around 1/5 of the roster that get regular hate from the player base, when it's 1/13 in melee and 1/7 in smash 4. Another problem is that the game can have a problem to make every characters feel unic and interesting, palutena gets hate because of this but she's far from the only very basic character. If we add to that the really underwhelming patches (especially compared to the smash 4 ones) and still questionable mechanics (suicide airdodge, difficulty to differentiate ftilts run and dash attacks and other really uncomfortable imputs).

[@TheEmperorGulcasa]

@@artimist0315 I don't think the ratio of disliked characters is indicative of anything other than that those games were more heavily centralized. If everything else sucks so much that it's not competitive, of course people won't complain about them. That isn't healthy either. Most people don't complain about most of Melee's roster because most of Melee's roster is unusably bad in competition. Smash 4 I think your opinion misses some key things everyone complained about that game for. Sure, the roster was pretty balanced before Bayo and Cloud. But the problem was that everyone played very similarly and the gameplay was very stale. Basically the entire cast just had the same short down throw combos. Outside the few exceptional characters, the roster had surface level distinctions but was very homogeneous in practice. If you want to talk about generic characters, this was the game, not Ultimate. Universally strong recovery and low kill power also resulted in extremely long slow games, which is why the game ended up using 2 stock. Smash 4 did not have a very healthy meta even before the dlc for that reason. I also think you are mixing up characters that are complained about and characters that people are legitimately discussing for nerfs for being game breaking. Yes plenty of people still don't like Aegis, or MinMin or whoever. They can still be a hard fight if you are using the wrong character or don't know how to fight them. But basically no pros at this point are arguing those characters are so broken that they are unbalancing the game. If you are counting general dissatisfaction with characters, then basically every character of every smash game has been complained about in one way or another. Some group dislikes everyone. But for Ultimate, other than potentially Steve right now, every other character that people have panicked as being the next Bayo or Metaknight has had their moment in the spotlight then eventually been countered and settled into just being a very good character. Joker was omg dlc and went on a tear, and now he's a rare sight. Minmin did actually just get nerfed, but she wasn't destroying the world before then. Aegis had their moment of panic and now things have settled down. Am I saying Ultimate is perfect and doesn't need any tweaks or changes or couldn't use maybe 1-2 more proper cleanup balance patches? No. If I could choose, I would change things about the game for sure. But what I am saying is that for the most part the game is diverse, people can play who they want and see success with most of the roster. The top end of competition isn't heavily homogenized, and I disagree that Ultimate's characters are all samey.

[@Buzzkilljoy1248]

I think I have a solution to that problem - the "Random" slot. Tourneys can still do their rules, but would have to unban any characters that are "illegal". Players can only select Random, the mystery keeping the players and spectators on their toes. This would encourage players to branch out and learn the roster to diversify their skillset and have a solution to whatever they're put up against, even frustrating characters. Anyone could be a good Sonic main or Steve main or Kazuya main, but only the best Smash players could kick ass with _any_ character.

[@TheEmperorGulcasa]

@@Buzzkilljoy1248 I don't think there's anything wrong with being a character specialist. Different characters play totally differently and not everyone likes how some characters play. Forcing people play random just artificially weakens people who dislike playing certain playstyles. Tournaments also become heavily rng, as you could end up with Leo being stuck with Gannon in grand finals and clowned on because he rolled a bottom tier character. The roster is also just too big for even someone comfortable with every playstyle to train and master every character so games would be at much lower skill levels in general.

[@Buzzkilljoy1248]

@@TheEmperorGulcasa Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with those who have a main. My mindset is very casual and more or less along the lines of that there are no frustrating characters, just frustrating players; you can be frustrating with any character if you know how to use them to their full potential. However, no character or player is an unbreakable monolith and there's always a way to beat them. My argument is that since luck/RNG always plays a part even in a controlled environment, the "Random Rule" will make tourneys interesting by levelling the playing field and part of the fun is not knowing how it'll turn out. Plus, some people take this party/fighting game a little too seriously and forget to have fun. It gets kind of boring and predictable when they stick to their comfort zones with the usual suspects of picks. A player who usually gets top spot might get knocked down a peg or two, while a player who barely makes it past the prelims could potentially become the new champion. Either way, the bragging rights only last until the next tournament. You and your opponent will either get characters you're good with, ones you're not so good with, or ones you haven't tried before. In any case, your only option for success is to adapt. And if you can't, you'll likely lose. But, it's not the end of the world, there's always next time.

[@jademonass2954]

apparently, according to my friend group, ever single fighter i pick (even on random) is "annoying" kekw nice video though, i like it

[@highspeedhighjinx7255]

All the characters in smash are annoying in their own way. Fighting aggressive players shows that. That's why I absolutely hate fighting aggressive players.

[@raidennc]

I'm a tekken player. And after watching this video I can say two things for certain: 1. The issues you describe with Kazuya really show that Sakurai captured the spirit of that character (and what makes him so strong in tekken) super well. 2. That is the EXACT same feeling we have with characters like Geese and Akuma in Tekken where they get to play by their own rules and bring in their unique advantages (2D mechanics and paradigms) while getting the benefits of the tekken system as well.

[@sonny259]

the reason why ewgf is frustrating is because the window to get the electric is easier in smash compared to tekken. in tekken you have to hit 2 the same frame you hit the down foward input, you miss that input and you don't get electric and dropping a combo in tekken is super punishing. even some of the best mishima players have a hard time hitting it consistently (it's why df2 ewgf is such a hype combo, it's super hard to do, especially in a tournament) in smash you have roughly 3-4 frames after the input to hit the electric which makes it super consistent which is why see these combos with egwf after eqwf in a row. it also makes less hype and more annoying because it's both easier to do and less punishing to mess up. still love kazuya he's one my favorite characters to play and fight and i have massive respect for him

[@AshenDemon]

No, it's not. It's frustrating because it's intangible and the risk is a little percent while the reward is a whole fucking stock. Maybe that's why it's frustrating to you but most people don't really think "Damn you only won because ewgf is easier here"

[@sonny259]

@@AshenDemon kazuya is intangible during his crouchdash, so any move he inputs after crouchdash is intangible, he can input crouching demon to left hook or his while rising input. ewgf is just the easiest to input after because the motion to do a crouchdash is in ewgf. also i don't wanna imply that i don't think the intangibility isn't annoying (it is), i just made the observation that it's easier and that also annoys me

[@sonny259]

@@AshenDemon also an easier ewgf also just makes it way more spammable than it should have been and the intangibility definetly doesn't help

[@cloviepounders6703]

The limit on agency is probably the biggest point to take away from this vid. No one wants to feel like they're not playing the game. I don't have a lot of issues with kazuya but why does he get a reflector, for that matter why do several characters get arbitrary reflectors? And maybe tone down kazuya's damage or knock back.

[@renatoramos8834]

Snake's filthy frame 1 grenades and capability of having more than one out at a time. Giving the grenades a similar animation time as other characters with projectiles (like peach's turnips) and limiting it to one grenade out at a time would greatly help in making snake fair. Other minor changes on him should be: Reduced weight, less knockback on nikita and more animation frames on C4 + it being very visible ALL the time (no tiny 3d model and no burying it).

[@juniperrodley9843]

Limiting Snake to 1 grenade would be excessive IMO; he's supposed to be able to cover a huge chunk of the stage with potential (but not concurrent) hitboxes. Increasing the time it takes for him to pull grenades would be enough.

[@renatoramos8834]

@@juniperrodley9843 Bullshit.

[@technicolormischief-maker5683]

Zoners wouldn’t be nearly as frustrating if platform fighters didn’t have some of the worst timers in all of fighting games, barring just removing timers completely. Why people blame the movement in these games when timing per stock would instantly resolve the biggest issue is completely beyond me.

[@superkulty64]

The amount of characters being frustrating, boring or unfun to fight against is why I truly believe that Ultimate is not a very well designed game and also just not fun to play. Again, casuals may think that having many characters is a good thing, but with Ultimate, it's a perfect example of why having so many characters is just not a good thing at all. Not only it is very overwhelming for newcomers on which characters they want to play, but it makes learning matchups extremely tedious and inconsistent in a way. Hence why I feel that Smash Ultimate is the most disappointing video game I've ever played. Brawl and Smash 4 may have their own slew of problems that make the competitive experience so awful, but I truly believe Ultimate is on the same level of awfulness, but for different reasons. I am truly looking forward to the day when people will finally admit that Smash Ultimate was never a good competitive game to begin with. Its awful buffer system combined with terrible c-stick makes for an awful game to control (which Brawl and Smash 4 did not suffer from btw). The terrible and overcentralized designed of many fighters make for an unfun experience. The single player content is very short-lived (quite expected, but previous entries have much better single player content barring Smash Wii U). It doesn't matter if people adapt and learn the matchups along the way, because it all comes down to playing lame and not interact as much as possible. What's the point of learning these matchups if it's straight up not fun? I want to have fun with Ultimate, but the game is so terrible in every way that it becomes very hard for me to like it. I don't care if I get hate for this, but I truly believe Smash Ultimate is a BAD COMPETITIVE GAME, about as bad as Brawl and Smash 4. Let me clear though: Smash Ultimate is not a bad game, but I'm not lying when I say that the game left me extremely disappointed and underwhelmed. This game truly destroyed my faith in Sakurai designing a good competitive Smash game and why I'm no longer looking forward to future Smash instalments.

[@ayar2]

"I don't care if I get hate for this, but I truly believe Smash Ultimate is a BAD COMPETITIVE GAME" not arguing with that in the slightest, because its first and foremost a casual game.

[@superkulty64]

@@ayar2 true. It just sucks that the game indirectly punishes you for trying play competitively. It's like by doing this, you will be in a world of pain and frustration.

[@minixlemonade]

@@superkulty64 As he intended. Everyone knows they hate the competitive scene and its their way to make them play with items. Jokes on them, items are boring too.

[@superkulty64]

@@minixlemonade yeah items are lame. Not a fan of casual Smash.

[@Mark---W]

For Kazuya, there has to be a reward for landing those tough precisely inputs within tiny amount of frame window......

[@zacharyerickson9846]

I'd much rather fight any of the "broken" DLC characters than a single Olimar

[@salfoyer2411]

As much as I want to disagree with this, I can’t help but admit it’s true

[@ayar2]

x2

[@sorakh4119]

Never fought a Olimar player weirdly enough but from what I heard from others, a competent one is scary

[@qwerandroxt7477]

Kazuya doesnt have any quarter or even half circles, only z motions, and ewgf is 2 frames, not 3

[@AshenDemon]

Doesn't fucking matter

[@qwerandroxt7477]

@@AshenDemon doesn’t matter to what?

[@AshenDemon]

@@qwerandroxt7477 Doesn't matter what inputs he has he's still broken. Although I thought you were saying he's hard so it's fair but after thinking about it I think you were just making a correction to something he said in the video.

[@syncthedingus1306]

I think a lot of what makes a frustrating character in this game is who you play. I play Hero a lot, so I can get frustrated by Sheik, Mario, and Pikachu way more easily than K. Rool, Ken, or Icies. So, part of why Steve and Kazuya are so maligned is because they have good matchups into many popular characters.

[@castonyoung7514]

Specifically, he does good against any character who can take damage.

[@sandycrash8868]

The funny thing is this frustrating characters to fight against can easily be fixed with a simple Negative penalty like in guilt gear

[@azure5293]

Probably by applying more steady stale moves scaling or more knockback to combo starter moves when you do get negative penalty in smash. Though tbh it would mess up the whole roster as a whole if they did that.

[@Jesus-hu4lq]

I told my friends that minecraft steve was a bad choice and the moment he got confirmed would cause people to get pissed not just because he got announced but by his move set and I told them start looking at his frame data and look for weaknesses in his kit. I told them If he had the armor craft system he would've been even more broken. I don't like the character but I warned them

[@The_Gabe]

lol

[@DADA-yt1pt]

From 13:32 onward, I completely agree. Recently I've been hesitant to play certain characters out of fear that I'll just annoy a lot of people. I main Kirby, but I also main Sora and have been playing him relentlessly and after watching this video, I feel more confident to just have fun with Sora and not care about what others think. Banjo's also pretty fun.

[@amazingtrooper5893]

For me playing with Kirby he is sometimes hard to counter but you just need to be smarter. Time your attacks more effectively and wait for openings like his down or back air

[@redflare4423]

but did kazuya actually need the strongest reflector in the game, or one of the best recoveries to be a good character?

[@imissmytoasteroven9551]

Best recoveries? I know that kazuya has probably the best recovery of all the fighting game characters but it is still his biggest or second biggest weakness is off stage disadvantage.

[@minixlemonade]

The main reason I think so many characters are frustrating, at least for me, is the fact that their playstyles are overly linear and simplistic yet still incredibly strong, likely due to the number of characters in the game. Many characters have moves that are disproportionately stronger than the rest of their kit, such as Falco's uptilt, Palu nair or GnW's up b. This creates many problems with how they're played as the guy playing them and how they're played against. They aren't characters they're walking gimmicks. They don't have fleshed out movesets due to the sheet amount of characters in the game, which is why so many people complain that a lot of characters all play the same. So many characters rely on one core gameplan only. Luigi is going to 0 death you or he loses. Falcon needs to do up air ladders into a knee or he loses. Prepatch Ike needed to nair you into oblivion or he loses. Yes these characters can use other strategies and be creative without having to spam two moves, but there's literally no reason to and are severely limiting themselves for it. Melee Fox had a really really good move (shine) that was a fair amount stronger than the rest of his kit, but for Fox he still had a large amount of moves to rely on instead of 1 or 2. Lasers and his ridiculously strong up smash for instance. Yes Fox used his shine a lot but he never HAD to rely on it at nearly every interaction, whereas I feel like many characters in this game live or die on one or two strong options. Little Mac another good example. Spam smashes on the ground or get fucked. I'm not going to pretend that other Smash games didn't have characters like this (Smash 4 Mario's up tilt, Melee Bowser up b, 64 Kirby up tilt, etc), but this game more than any other has so many very very good characters like this that need to incessantly rely on their strongest options because the rest of their kit is dogcrap in comparison. Melee Bowser for instance can get away with spamming up b because he sucks and because bottom tiers are hype. But a top tier or high tier character playing like Melee Bowser becomes problematic. Imagine Melee Fox with his extremely strong shine + waveshining and the ability to laser camp the whole game, but with a up smash that killed at 150%, a much weaker up air, next to no combo game and couldn't chain grab anymore. Still a ridiculously strong character, but with far fewer options. That would essentially be an Ultimate rendition of him. A strong but ridiculously lame character. Now imagine a meta dominated by a lot of high tier and top tier Melee Bowsers. Sounds lame AF. Ultimate's poor movement options unfortunately don't help this problem very much. Also, half the cast have "all or nothing" character philosophies that must rely on one core mechanic to win or die. Like Min Min. They were made like this to make them as different from each other as possible. I might be wrong and don't get me wrong this game is a lot of fun, its just that half the cast feels very VERY poorly designed. For every MinMin and Steve there's a Ridley, Robin, or Roy though. Maybe I'm stupid and this all doesn't make sense, idk. This is just something I've been thinking about for a while.

[@smashbronikko]

I think that in addition to the game just not being all that fun to me anymore, the DLC characters is what hurt my enjoyment of game. Funny enough it's the same reason why I stopped playing Smash 4. However in Ultimate I don't think these characters are unbeatable, but I do think that the devs should of kept patching the game to tone down some of the more problematic characters. Not nerf them into the ground, just altering the moves that need to be.

[@Spyder-Marth]

Agreed. I was so shocked and disappointed when the last patch was announced. It came by so fast after Sora's released that it never felt like it should've been the final patch, but then Nintendo said it was...

[@ayar2]

@@Spyder-Marth sakurai needed vacations so badly

[@Spyder-Marth]

@@ayar2 true, but it's still sad nonetheless. I wish he didn't overwork

[@jacobalexander5139]

10:08 counter balance? The dude is the speed of ganondorf just run away, space, or projectile him, or better yet all 3

[@N12015]

And the jump squat of smash 4 Ganondorf, which is huge and means the character is very bad on shield.

[@PresidentPixel]

I’ve moved on to other fighting games, as much as I love Smash Bros. for their insane roster of characters, it’s hard to play competitively when camping is constantly rewarded so I only play it casually from time to time.

[@ibechuu9695]

Don't understand why Nintendo chose to stop patches. I think the ban is earned at this point.

[@l.n.3372]

I once watched a Min Min edge guard someone from the opposite side of the stage. I couldn't help but wonder how this was allowed to be in a modern Smash game. Characters like Min Min and Steve have such different play styles to the Smash bros historical characters.

[@jojo6783f]

Well so have i seen snake, pits and the pk boys so that. Kinda a bad example

[@l.n.3372]

@@jojo6783f Actually your examples are the "bad ones" here. Snake uses Nikita. Pit uses arrows. Ness uses PK thunder. 3 unconnected projectiles that aren't always out and don't always exist on the screen. 3 projectiles that need to be aimed to hit the opponent. Min Min uses her arms, connected to her body, in the longest hit box in the game. She only needs to press forward to hit anything ahead of her. She can jump while using it. She can charge it for more damage. And she can fire a projectile from it too, as if she wasn't bad enough already.

[@jojo6783f]

@@l.n.3372 i dont disagree with you. But saying edguarding from the opposite side of the stage is not a new thing. So that specific scenario is a bad argument for the fact min min plays such a different playstyle. But again i do agree with you that min min plays a very different playstyle from any other smash character

[@vegetatheveggie2547]

Min Min has horizontal prowess with decent anti air, most counter play comes from attacking or engaging diagonal, watch how people like Leo and Light fight her

[@ReconNarwhal]

Getting punished for wanting to interact with these characters is terrible character design 101. Fighting games are a lot like a dance. If they block low, you go for the overhead, etc. Waiting for your opponent to get carried by their DLC mechanic or having them kill you at 40 percent for making one minor mistake off one interaction is no fun. The problem with making DLC characters is that giving these mechanics to them makes the DLC player feel like a god because they can bypass that dance entirely. Except the fun we have when we play the game comes from the dance. When we finish a set and lose, we want to be able to look back and think “man, if I just pressured him better in the corner or blocked high on the leg sweep I would’ve won” not “wow, I shouldn’t have dared to interact with the Steve player playing creative mode in the corner by himself”.

[@mb654bloopers]

Sometimes, It's just funny to me to see players complain about a character, only for them to play the character themselves to realize they're actually hard as frick. I think Muteace is a good example, he plays peach a technical character as already is, complains about yonni's steve, tried the character and got enlightened with the character and tried to learn the match up so much he became one the most knowledgeable player about steve despite being a non-steve player. I encourage those who complain about the characters to try and play them yourself and place well in tournaments, that might give a change of perspective

[@drewhaynes1874]

Bayonetta..... But not to go up against.... But To play as ......She's such a glass cannon with a high learning curve in this game.... Her combos don't connect reliably, her kill moves are non existent and when they work the opponents health is unnecessarily high when the rest of the roster can kill at 70% She did fine in the invitational phase but the antibayo train kicked in and got her nuked because the ridley fight... But ignored factors. Green green had the lowest ceiling in the game. Zero who mained bayo was a competitive VETERAN... going up against a large inexperienced ridley who is combo food...there's characters who can drag their opponents off screen with far less inputs... Witchtime Is broken as in the opponent alot of the time will get out of it while you are still in the middle of the dodge animation. Or if they don't your attack will clank interrupting your hit with the clank animation wasting the move entirely. Or you simply get hit out of witchtime dispite the counter flash going off..... Her attacks on sheild do absolutely nothing and her moves can easily get her grabbed out of.... Like how tf is it possible to grab her out of heel slide dispite her literally laying on the floor and her hitbox still being at least is supposed to be active? Her charge shots take even longer to actually charge than original it would've been cool if they made it to where you can angle it like her smash attacks.... Speaking of smash attacks.... Your opponent will be right in front of it just standing it's likely the move won't register and hit them.... Kirby ness young link and smaller characters wont get hit... Bullet arts is very useless in alot of moves tbh.... As they weakened damage they do and shortened distance. Her final smash nerfs where dumb and unnecessary... Yet Zelda's never got one I'm decent at maining her but she's still janky and unrewarding most of the time. I know I'm complaining about her I love the character but it's just not that fun playing as her when she's disadvantaged against most of the roster... I never asked for buffs just a complete fix to her moveset That make her function and feel more fluid and Natural

[@roamingtheinternet8652]

Thank you so much for also stating this. I also find it crazy how people who play Bayonetta were actually being made fun of, and I'm pretty sure it still happens to this day.

[@gerryfromthevoid8986]

playing against bayo is cancer

[@AshenDemon]

Not trying to be rude but how the hell is this relevant?

[@roamingtheinternet8652]

@@AshenDemon try reversing the situation. Bayonetta is extremely infuriating to play as because her nerfs were blown out of proportion since Invitational, and every character pretty much does everything better than her.

[@AshenDemon]

@@roamingtheinternet8652 Again how is this relevant? I'm confused she got reckted as she should have what does this have to do with the broken characters of this game? Is it because she used to be broken?

[@Fibless]

Got a sponsor and everything, bro you have been killing it with these videos Keep it up big man, you might have my favorite smash content on this entire site at this point

[@daconsti7531]

Bro didnt you just put kazuya in mid tier? And now you say he isnt balanced? ok...

[@nintentwins1867]

There are a lot of frustrating characters in Smash Ultimate, however I think it is easier to deal with because the way to get past them is myself. With something like League, I cannot control my teammates. If they are facing a frustrating champion, I just have to hope they can take care of it so I don't have to deal with it later. In Smash, I can focus on the threat in front of me. Being in control of what I can do is satisfying regardless of who I am facing. Thinking about how to get past that frustrating wall after losing to them is fun in its own right to me, and that us because I have complete control over how to get past that wall.

[@christianramirez3860]

Same here. We get frustrated from the game from time to time but once we take a moment to relax and train, it will be paid off in the end. Will it take the frustration from the character you may or may not enjoy? Probably not, but it will be easier to deal with them I the end.

[@austinchadwick2655]

While this is talking about being competitive, a lot of it stems from online play. What I think would change peoples opinions is allowing players to change characters. I like playing Mario but when I meet that online Sonic I know I’m in for a boring match. Just my two cents 😊

[@Pj_901]

I think the characters are just terribly balanced and are sometimes pay to win. After watching the gimvitational I think a lot of top players are considering dropping their mains or simply just taking a break because of them. I think the characters need some type of ban. Maybe a dlc ban before a match where you can ban one dlc character of your choosing or top players are gonna have to pick up new characters so they can play the matchup. But even that will be boring bc kazuya loses to sonic and zoners. And Steve doesn’t really lose imo.

[@charlieharrington9555]

Atrocious take

[@crashtime3429]

Every steve i fight online is annoying. They just camp out making little block huts or walls and just mine until they get diamond. I main ken/ryu so its bad matchups too. When i try to jump over he uses his up smash which is the multi burn magma block. If i dodge that and go to the side he just hits me with his minecart. Rinse and repeat and he just kills me with diamond. Steve shouldnt be in smash. He dosent fit

[@kingmeprime]

Musicians, youtubers, and even regular people have to earn my respect. And my interest. I follow quality, not people. That said, I am blown away by your presentation, editing, and perspective. You've even revived a lost hobby of mine in a way that can be healthy. Thank you, and great job.

[@trainershade1937]

I find it funny, in the grand scheme of things Steve would probably be a lot less annoying if he was more accurate to his origin game. Spamming melee in Minecraft reduces your attack's effectiveness (this is mostly being brought up for that clip of Bowser being hit a bunch of times in a row). There's also the fact that you cannot place blocks unless you place them on a solid surface, which would reduce some of the crazy platform shenanigans they can do. Another one would be that Gold tools are actually worse than Wooden ones (they do the same damage, but Wood has better durability). Also, it hurts me whenever someone brings up game accuracy for characters. Specifically because of a certain spacefaring Planet Destroye- I mean: Bounty Hunter...

[@analogapotheosis4275]

Gold tools in smash break the quickest but attack the quickest like in minecraft

[@ShockwaveFPSStudios]

Or just incorporate some Minecraft Dungeons moves into Steve’s moveset

[@treenyinkler7063]

As a smash ultimate player, this is so relatable. Every of us has our own share of hate in characters in the game. I struggle to get use to a character I face against with my mains

[@myashykneecaps]

Pretty much it just goes with everyone’s experience

[@treenyinkler7063]

@@myashykneecaps Agree

[@Kolya-chu]

This is a contentious topic. I don’t even want to say that Aegis’s flaws outweigh their strengths. No way, not me 🫣.

[@sunshadowlightmoon8597]

Tldr... Don't hate the game hate the player