(Once again, English email, to clarify to the contact_publish@nintendo.co.jp email address. Also, excuse the immense length on the email alone. I'm needing to make my stance clear, so to the translator, please excuse me. I'd be at least be aiming to put important points in Bold. Also, if you are that worried about legality issues by taking active advice from me, just credit "David Harlow" (my real name) in some portion of the credits like Special Thanks. Also, I will admit that I'm basically a Squishy Wizard player, stuck with a reaction time of 0.27 to 0.30 seconds, but I can still provide no shortage of points as you'd see and that is bound to greenlight some of the key concepts I will bring up.)
Before I start, since a certain incident is still probably fresh in your minds, I want to clarify that I actually have spoken out against the general toxicity that plagues gaming communities, unfortunately to no useful effect. I will admit I have my own share of immaturity, but it's more anger at the unfairness of the world in general than anything. I find I'm still in a morally good position to denounce the Smash community for fostering the Lima and CaptainZach incident, especially given the material I will soon showcase for my end. I don't know, maybe I'm just trying to convince myself wading through zombies could be worth trouble.
You probably remember that I emailed you about a month ago and might think I'm one of those Stop Having Fun Guys, and would be hypocritical by extension. I will grant that I did the YKTTW entry on Savvy Guy Energetic Girl over my own reasons, so it's not like my viewpoint is going to be perfect, but may I bring up the execution of the bonus question for Ace Attorney Spirit of Justice's second case, The Magical Turnabout. Greatly handled Hate Sink of a villain there, by the way, that guy was just personally irritating beyond belief with all of his atrocities for one reason or another, with the worst, the one that leaves me wondering why he is deemed not heinous enough for the Complete Monster trope, being that (spoiler) he killed his own clearly loyal successor of 2 years simply to continue being a solo act (/spoiler), and it got to the point where I screamed to demean him in a clear vent of rage the instant I knew he could not escape being convicted for his crimes. Of course, I bring up the case because I do notice a theme of the Technician VS Performer trope. I think the bonus question's answer being set as is actually put an overemphasis on the Performer side of things, ironically making it needlessly cheesy. I got it right the first time on blind stream, but if I were in Apollo's place, I would have chosen Stage Lift #2 to point to Trucy's diligence over fixing Bonny de Famme's mistake, as well as her funny story about it where she mentions how the "abyss" just happens to drain magicians of their powers. The underlying message would be "hey, (bad guy) IS wrong, because you're talented and cool enough, even if I'd welcome more emphasis on Mr. Hat than on...THAT other gimmick, the one that makes you look like an idiot." That would be better than just telling her to keep smiling, especially when the culprit tried to do just that in an attempt to torture her even further than he already did. My point is, I'll agree the Performer side has a very good point with the notion of originality and heart, but the problem isn't that Technicians exist, so much as there are bad Technicians like that villain who don't care to share what would be useful points. May I further point out that a friend had noticed, before even having seen anything in the 4th game in the Ace Attorney series, that Ace Attorney's villains generally think in absolutes and that's where they fall apart. All I'm saying is to be careful that you don't cause a backfire that inadvertently betrays the thinking outside the box message that is accommodated by the standard Ace Attorney sidekick being a Genki Girl.
That finally covered, I'll get to talking about Smash Bros. actively now. I'm primarily going to provide input on individual facets of the series' balance, even if I'll, again, focus on my experience with the 4th game. First, though, a couple of quality of life suggestions outside the gameplay that could be applied for Ultimate, and also a gameplay option I would hope for:
*Please show opponents' connection strength before having a player commit to matches. This would make it easier to see who has bad connections before getting stuck against a lag-abusing projectile spammer/camper. Also, if you can find a clean, pretty, and reliable way to punish lagswitching, please do it. Lagswitchers tend to exploit the extra lag to destroy any sense of finesse and get spam or other idiotic gameplay going.
*As for the second suggestion, the ability to sort Replays by Characters would be very much appreciated. I have a lot of replays on the Wii-U version that I want to clean up and such, quite a few of them involving me playing as Frail Sniper characters or other such while not using their projectiles or other flowchart moves, effectively having to be a Melee Tornado. (Imagine, for example, Duck Hunt (Dog) without any B moves other than his much needed Up B.) The inability to sort Replays by Characters is a bother if I want to, say, find my Melee Tornado Mega Man replays. Fixing this would be very useful. And by the way, the inability to scroll through stats on the Wii-U version has been bothersome. Will Ultimate fix that? It should.
*As for what would be very welcome for gameplay options, I doubt you can get it in if you haven't already, but a VS option to play with characters as stocks, ala Smash Tour, would be just that. This would be obvious on implications of competitive with demanding more characters be mastered, but I seem to recall that rewarding the artist is the happy medium between competitive and party play. And the idea of having to change between characters mid-match would surely add to the party aspect, especially when 8 Player Smash would likely involve more than 8 characters. Obviously, execution is important, but maybe you have some ideas? (Post-Direct comment: looks like you'd be doing this with Squad Strike, but I want to be sure, not having seen gameplay footage of it.)
As for points to mention? I will first provide praise for showing signs that you're heading in the right direction in the close range VS long range balance from the way you're changing around Pac-Man's damage values in Ultimate--I can reference a data sheet based on the E3 build:
https://docs.google.com/
It's clear that you're objectively weakening the Orange, which was the easiest early Bonus Fruit to use, and also making Bonus Fruit in general, with trading out some raw damage for faster generation of the later Bonus Fruit, focus more on utility than raw power, which again I approve since it will weaken the Key and emphasize the likes of the Bell better. Meanwhile, moves like Down Air dealing more damage also helps them get going, so there's that. While I still have concerns, since I would still prefer Pac's Smashes focus on rewarding reads (granted, they probably do but I am worried about the faster speed being too much), it would help encourage players to understand the nuances in melee combat, like what you can read from here:
May I also point to the match at the indicated time of the video, which should help provide an idea of what sort of gameplay to encourage well:
Obviously not the Bayonetta's idea of gameplay--that should have to worry about burnout. I'm glad you're going to call out the "ladder of death" as I call it. What I understand is how running and jumping are bursts of movement, that their mere existence helps the game's speed but work best in design when while still necessary their usage level being high enough would still be tied to clear playstyle, so that the adrenaline rush may stay around but methodical gameplay simultaneously becomes satisfying without excessive difficulty in managing it.
At any rate, I do applaud the notion of increasing emphasis on utility for projectiles and better rewarding more methodical melee combat, and also increasing the cooldown on backwards rolling while I'm at it due to how that has done what it can to make walking redundant and camping more aggravating. Of course, as I believe I stated before, complacency is a specter not to be underestimated, and applying changes for one character doesn't do a lot about the rest, so I may as well bring up further points:
*Shielding - this has bothered a lot of people, myself included. Not so much that shielding exists, but the way it plays out. Sidestepping is far riskier, only really caring to stop grabs, and thus it suffers borderline redundancy. I find that general Shielding, including Perfect Shielding, could be made to serve a purpose that would be unique compared to other defense moves: focusing far more on blunting weaker, less risky moves than blunting the stronger, more risky ones. Having projectiles deal less shieldstun is already a good thing, but you know at this point what I keep saying about complacency. I can provide the math for the frame data with shieldstun with the current Smash 4 formula: a 7 damage attack would deal 6 frames of shieldstun while a 25 damage attack would manage 16. That's not a big enough difference made by damage output, and I do note how most Smash attacks have about 30 frames of cooldown unless I'm missing something. I would say a shieldstun formula of INT(D/1.2 + 2) - 1 as the base, maybe have the defender's Weight influence it too, as well as a multiplier somewhere for Smash attacks especially if they are going to magnify knockback taken by the Smash attack user during chargeup (seriously, THAT is backwards design unless something compliments it well, and may I also point out that thematic reasons or not, Little Mac being the ONLY character who gets superarmor when using Smashes is absolutely off), would help. This is assuming Smash 4's handiwork--I have heard about Ultimate apparently forcing a player to stay in Shield for 4 frames longer, something I question if not for Neutral Air Out Of Shield shenanigans, are those even intentional BTW? Oh, and yeah, I haven't even mentioned about Perfect Shielding, which is inevitably going to go (hopefully) without saying why it shouldn't suffocate attacks like Down Airs with the old execution resulting in convenient PSs out of rolls that had been read, and the new execution begging for shieldgrabs by the min-maxers.
*Back/Down Airs - speaking of the Down Airs, how often are these or Back Airs used, either in 1V1s or in free-for-alls? I wager most of their usage is going to relate, excessively, to flat out utility, aside from the Back Airs being set up by something called the Reverse Aerial Rush, which I'm not sure is intended and I'd be surprised if it is. Back Airs can get some mileage regardless since they're likely to have secondary purpose be visible enough, but facing back means giving up immediately doing a Jab, Down Tilt, Forward Air, or forward striking B move without active finesse. Down Airs are even worse in the context of a game where being right next to the opponent is a clear cut risk, and having, say Charizard's Down Air successfully hit Captain Falcon directly only to get Charizard socked by the Forward Smash right after with literally no chance to do ANYTHING to even try to escape, makes it even more problematic. I figure Back Airs and Down Airs should have the sense of power they're implied to have actually work. They may not be Smash attacks and the game isn't called Super Back/Down Air Bros., but they already require active handling to see good use. They're bound to be distinct enough too so there shouldn't be a problem with skill barriers when newer players would get to better understand what is going on.
*Forward/Up/Neutral/Tether Airs - I actually include Up and Neutral Airs because they can be needlessly simplistic and effective simultaneously, but I'll focus on Forward and Tether Airs in general because they particularly exasperate that problem. I will say at least that I do catch on how Forward/Back/Neutral Airs can hit high, low, or middle, with the obvious implication that hitting low focuses on hitting against a grounded foe. I can be sure a good number of Forward Airs actually hit low, or swing downward which means hitting high first then low after. If the intent is to make sure people would want to consider being in the air, that's a good idea. However, there's a fine line between doing that and punishing the opponent simply for having to obey the laws of gravity at all, and not helping is when the Forward Air player can just use backward momentum to get away from retribution. May I further point out that Forward and Tether Airs can do off-stage camping if not checked well, as they can work as an easy substitute for the edge recoveries: what a player can do is press down to let go of the edge, then immediately press Jump to do the midair jump to get above the stage floor, and then do the given Air attack. Characters like Marth, Ness, Lucas, and Samus can exploit this to rob the opponent of stage control, and I swear this has character bias written all over it. Landing cooldown won't completely address it either, because I guarantee that this can even be used to camp as well:
At the very least, I can provide awareness of these bothers before they can spread the camping any further, because I do understand that these attacks are supposed to have threat value. Here's what I ask: what if there was more emphasis on the Forward/Up/Neutral/Tether Airs' utility, and less damage output or other sense of raw power from them? I am understanding that lower damage values from spammable attacks increases the demand for patience to spammers themselves when they would take longer to bring an opponent up to KO percents. Those aerials could stand to be looked at at the very least to see if they follow that notion. If they do it well enough that any kiting isn't intolerable, players will surely want to fight smarter. If they deal enough damage to undermine stage control, well, excessive reward for an easy option is what promotes camping.
*Grab/Throw balance - that reminds me. I don't like KO Back Throws, and I can be sure I'm far from the only one who feels the same way, rightly so. Ness is infamous, but Toon Link, Robin, and some other characters who I wouldn't remember doing so can do it too. Why are KO Back Throws a problem? Because they outright punish the player for having stage control. I can understand punishing the player for complacency--that's actually a good thing. This, however, brings about the same irritation that Rage (the pseudo-Lucario Aura effect) did, that you do well and suddenly you're dead at some laughably low percentage when the opposing character is not even somebody like Bowser. KO Up Throws can be bothersome too for not caring about stage control, but at least that's more neutral to it. Meanwhile, KO Forward Throws, which would reward stage control, are rare--having that is one thing actually done right with Bayonetta. That's not even getting into how grabbing favors faster characters such as Captain Falcon, who got nicknamed "Captain Dashgrab" in some circles as a result, leaving me wondering why it's not somebody like Ganondorf, with his bad mobility and even worse grab reach, who even has good Throws. Speaking of Ganondorf, why doesn't Dark Dive trigger the opponent's recently grabbed flag and fail when that's active? That can result in several consecutive uses of it, but I'll get to that. My point is, Grabbing tends to favor the Fragile Speedster characters over the Mighty Glacier ones where it stands, and Throws should account for as much. Having the characters who do less forcing the opponent to use Shielding AND have more problems dealing with projectiles, being the ones to get good mileage out of their Throws would be better than being so harshly punished for being too easily grabbed by generic Ness #81,018,001.
*Lunge moves - I briefly talked about Dark Dive just now, but really, lunge moves in general deserve to be called into question. I do get that they're supposed to be useful for punishment and surprise attacks. The problem is when they punish the opponent's mere existence, while the opponent can't even reach the lunge move camper. Yep, more camping, and with lunge moves. May I point to this:
That's actually a tame example, but it's more than enough to showcase what makes counter methods against lunge moves cross into being counterintuitive. Considering that lunge move camping can still be worse by mixing in dash grabs like what Captain Falcon has become infamous for, and what results is glorified rock-paper-scissors for its own sake rather than as a simple check against overuse of the same move, while, of course, Mighty Glaciers suffer because they can't very well resort to lunge moves themselves. I do understand that lunge moves end up far less useful in Free-For-Alls because the user can run afoul of surplus opponents. In that case, I propose finding creative ways to check lunge moves in a manner that would make them demand significantly more methodical gameplay in 1V1s without being noticeably worse than they already would be in non-1V1s. I did bring up the concept of burnout, so that should help provide some ideas. Of course, I am aware that lunge moves' purpose does bring up an elephant in the room simply by being an intended counter against it even though I need only mutter the name "Pseudo Palutena" for her broken AI in Kid Icarus Uprising as showcased here:
And what's the elephant in the room?
*Projectiles - I won't lie: you see how much I want projectiles extensively checked. Any time a game's balance gets complacent and half-efforts the projectile checking, it never ends well, as what ends up rewarded is overthinking or some other soulless gameplay. I need only point to what happened with Kid Icarus Uprising, where the most broken weapon modifier aside from Evasion+ in its own invincibility frame doubling idiocy was Shot Range+ due to a myriad of reasons including mid-range looping and practically undodgeable shots. Heck, I can tell you from experience helping to balance this Turn-Based Strategy game called Shattered Throne, which already saw fit to have range units significantly eschew raw power for utility features before I had even stepped in, that indolence with checks against range abuse would still allow the problem to rampage. Fortunately, you seem to understand the concept of utility over power already, as I already mentioned with how you rebalanced Pac-Man's Bonus Fruit, seriously is the damage reduction an Author's Saving Throw. Nevertheless, that would be worth keeping in mind due to how overly simplistic most projectiles in SSB are for how approaching as slower characters is bothersome because of the projectiles. Something I do understand is how projectiles are meant to involve the more clearly technical gameplay, but they start getting balanced once the key components of any abuse demand clearer, more liable gameplay. Ultimately, setting the technical bar high enough for efficient projectile usage unto itself, with Counter Play that particularly helps the Mighty Glacier/Melee Tornado hybrid being involved to keep it from being overly polarizing, would REALLY help the balance. With the Counter Play, if you can come up with stuff that would have just the good aspects of Kid Icarus Uprising's Grid Reading (basically, Grid Reading is reading the opponent's power grid based on their used powers to catch flaws, with full line powers such as Bumblebee and Mega Laser contradicting leveled Slip Shot (full row+column) being the most obvious), just subtracting issues like the memorization demand but keeping more active need for it to player character choice while natural and creative answers alike would still clearly exist, that can definitely help. I mentioned Pac-Man's Hydrant before even though that's an obvious extreme, but considering that for example King Dedede's Gordo has sloppy hit detection which had me need to input for Ganondorf's Up Tilt purely by accident to learn that its KB on Dedede himself is influenced by the move that sent back the Gordo, that's a red flag that projectiles where they stand create character bias. And really, I still stand by how cutting down on players scrambling on needing to find other characters just to answer projectiles, which can just as easily invite boring gameplay unto themselves; rather than because those other characters are interesting unto themselves, would improve the excitement when there's better substance to help hold up the flash. I know for example Olimar would be a lot more exciting when he'd start caring about his Pikmin's maturity stages instead of adhering to We Have Reserves like Pikmin 2 even provided 20 individual Violet Candypop Buds (I know that's not the case from having done a No Casualties Run of that game); and that Robin would be less polarizing if he actually could need to care about his tomes' durability instead of acting like Maric or Wendel in the very first Fire Emblem could only need maxed stats to juggernaut solo Chapter 9 even through drying up Excalibur from full, ignoring the sort of thing I point out in the description of this video:
There's bound to be more examples, but those are the two that come to mind. They come to mind because they're a show of what could work about projectile design if they were balanced well instead of given too much power.
*Combo Counter Play - while I'm on the subject of Counter Play, the concept of Combos have issues with it. It gets particularly glaring when it allows for easily knocking a stock off of a hit at a low percent as what happened here resulting in my rage taunting:
That's actually even worse than anything that spawned out of Mario's Up Tilt shenanigans, which I agree with you removing actually, which may I also point out there that Mario is far from the only character who can have his Up Tilt chain into itself--he's only notable for doing that because of how fast he can get in general. Another problem that shows in the video is how the Ukemi doesn't provide enough invincibility frames to stop the obscene punishment merely for doing the Ukemi--believe me, I tried to Shield, which would have stopped the Up B, so I know it's the transition that's the problem. It shows how Fragile Speedsters can reach exploitive levels unless the game design catches them. The question I pose for Ultimate to answer in its balance job is thus: can combos be reasonably disrupted and thrown off by the defending player to prevent excessive damage taken from one mistake? I was obviously playing as Mega Man in that video so mish-mash close range on my part should be punished, but the thing is, I'm not for gameplay where even the Frail Sniper characters should have to fear getting in close all the time, because we know as I mentioned how polarizing that gets. May I also point out that Directional Influence isn't intuitive--I only got to seeing how it works because of difference between early versions of Smash 4, and even it's *STILL* confusing to this day despite or perhaps in fact from being simple. I'm aware Ultimate implements balloon knockback for that reason, but I think I'd rather bring up these issues in case that's not enough. If combos should exist, that can be fine, if the Counter Play exists as well to make sure players aren't punished for failure to commit to some messed up memorization that doesn't even involve good mnemonics.
*Aerial landing cooldown - I know how Ultimate is planning to reduce landing cooldown, at least that's what the recorded frame data would be implying. I don't see it advertised in the trailers, but if reduced landing cooldown is intended anyway, that could put a damper on the point of landing cooldown, that it's supposed to keep people from just throwing out aerial attacks with something like the C/R-Stick set to Attack/Smash, instead having them consider faith in an opponent failing to hit. Thus I ask: is the lowered landing cooldown going to be balanced out well? There are already signs of aerials becoming safe on block based purely on frame data, which the min-maxers already aim for exploiting where they can. This problem is already at questionable levels in Smash 4 so it should be brought to light. Also of note, something I find about aerial abuse is how fast fall aerials end landing cooldown at an earlier frame because not only does the attack's landing cooldown replace the fast fall's, but it would start and thus end sooner from the fast fall than if the character didn't fast fall--and this by the way doesn't even go into a glitch where apparently hitlag can be substituted for the landing cooldown, hopefully that gets patched. May I also suggest to add an increase to landing cooldown for fast falling. This would help to prevent fast falls from creating hit traps for free. We are supposed to care about the mind and the heart after all, not just the body.
*Counter moves - yep, I'm referring to the same Down B quite a few characters such as Marth and Lucario have. I bring them up because they were notoriously flowcharted early in Smash 4's lifespan due to the way they have been handled, namely that they punish attacks for being more powerful. I believe attacks designed to be like that would already have their own clear counterbalances that would make them harder to use, at least they're supposed to. Now far be it for me to want to even consider doing an impression of Darth Vader choking Admiral Motti, but I don't think it's good to have, for example, Marth get out of Ness's PSI Thunder Missile and be the one scoring the KO that way just by pressing Down and B in a situation where where Marth, through his reach, is even in a position where he is too far away from Ness to hit him, too high in the air to reach the ground in time to shield, AND too disrupted to evade in time. Now I do understand that Counter moves are meant to discourage bland usage of characters who have fewer attacks that hit hard and thus those attacks would stand out more, but those characters tend to be faster so they have an easier time grabbing, which means this concept burns itself out and we instead have cases like Ganondorf dying on the spot at mid percentage to a Counter on his Up Air launched from a single jump. Perhaps most notable, of course, is that Counter moves can be directly compared to simple dodge moves, with the direct contrast being that succeeding with them launches a counterattack that in 1V1 can't be responded to. Ultimate already weakening dodge move overuse is going to make the contrast even more in favor of these character-specific moves, and I know Counter moves add on invincibility frames that prevent grabbing from working before you suggest that idea. My question about Counter moves is, does Ultimate do a better and more creative job balancing Counter moves? I am sure we don't want repeats of, say, Cruel Smash being broken into pieces by Counter move abuse, or the AI being a nightmare with it by cheating with the input reads. Obviously, the notion of using a foe's power against them should be around, but often, it's speed that is more capable of causing unwelcome gameplay, and there should be more ways to call out attack spam instead of punishing methodical attack usage.
*Knockback cancelling - the bad execution of this actually isn't something I have seen a lot of, but what I have seen is more than enough. For reference, KB cancelling as I'm calling it would be stopping the knockback of one attack via given actions. What I have seen is attacks like Ganondorf's Down Air get completely neutralized by Ukemi making it obscenely open to counterattack; attacks in Multi Man Smash that would KO there fail because the mook would get jumped on by another mook; and my "favorite": what is known as footstool combos. There's also hitting an ally in team battle with a low knockback attack if they've just been hit with a higher one, which I don't think Pinball would think would make sense. I do understand that Ultimate's balloon knockback is something that could help tone this issue down, but I think I should bring this up anyway because, and I'll say this yet again, complacency is a specter that is rarely far away. My suggestion is, simply, prevent Ukemi for knockback velocity exceeding a given amount, as well as any chance of easy knockback velocity override, and also to make doubly sure springboard jumping can't work on somebody in knockback stun duration. I can't imagine having any of what I call out provides welcome effect to the gameplay, so if it gets patched out, I'm not exactly complaining.
*Stale Moves mechanic - another mechanic where I will talk about the execution, because we can see how this mechanic is intended to punish spam. I say it ends up backfiring, because I can call out an opponent's spam repeatedly with, say, Pac-Man's Power Pellet and suddenly it won't KO them at a reasonable percentage, but the spammer can KO me just fine at 80% with their own relatively easy to use KO move because what they spammed is a different move. It paints a picture of the sort of reason why I prefer subtraction defense like what Fire Emblem uses, over division defense like Advance Wars manages in every iteration other than Game Boy Wars 3 to a given extent. What would be welcome to stop that sort of thing would be a way to actually and directly address lower raw power attacks. I could even see that notion be exclusive to 1V1s since you already account for the increase in leg room there. It just has to be done well to prevent the brand of abuse I complained about.
*Small characters - it's a rather obvious point that smaller characters such as Ness, Lucas, Toon Link, Duck Hunt, and Kirby can be irksome to hit and also harder to combo than bigger characters like Bowser or King Dedede. Give them the smallest sense of attack range and they become miserable. Lo and behold, Ness's PSI Fire and PSI Thunder make him obnoxious with overly free setups, Lucas has a tether grab that by the way gets confirmed by clipping the shield with the tether aerial, Toon Link has an Up Smash that is irksome thanks to horizontal distance, on top of all his projectiles, Duck Hunt can be a nightmare to hit if he plays lame, and why does Kirby's *FINAL* Cutter have low cooldown too? I get that smaller characters generally are supposed to have a sense of evasion, but doesn't that suggest that lower risk moves are going to be even more appealing to use than usual and higher risk ones even less so? When was the last time an online Ness had used Back Air or especially Down Air? Yet there is VERY visible usage of PSI Fire and Forward Air. That's my point: that smaller characters would need to be looked at carefully to avoid letting them be manipulative game design. The difficulty in hitting them is enough to complicate countering their gameplay, and definitely should be accounted for.
*Mega Man Pellets/Villager's Forward Air - these two attacks warrant being brought up unto themselves for how they can be particularly exploitive with the range. Mega Man's Pellets from the Jab, Forward Tilt, and Neutral Air, have become an overexposed joke in the sense that they're more powerful than they should be, and it gets particularly bad for King Dedede, who lacks the aerial mobility to move forward fast enough except through grounded movement. Dedede VS Mega Man isn't unplayable for Dedede in Smash 4, but it has clear problems already, and Ultimate increasing the range on the Pellets will only make things even worse. As for Villager's Forward Air, that thing already gets used for something called planking, in addition to being overly easy and safe offense, by all indications from bypassing aerial acceleration by starting the running action. Yet another question I pose: are these attacks going to be creatively checked? These two attacks stand out as not having a clear enough counter for what they do compared to anything else in these two characters' movesets, although the B move spam for Mega Man does try. Checking both of these particular attacks well would reduce character bias. (And yes, I know Villager's Back Air is also the slingshot, so you'd have to account for aesthetic. It's nowhere near as sadistic due to being a Back Air.)
*Pit and Little Mac - something I have noticed with both of these characters is how they are supposed to involve a form of dodge-and-attack gameplay, though with subtle differences with Pit working with maneuverability and Little Mac managing burst damage. I have also notice that characters are meant to mutate gameplay to center around given concepts in the interest of creating a composite game, as the characters' weaknesses would equally point out. At least, that's what they suggest anyway. I believe these two characters are supposed to have some sense of cooldown on their attacks, but they have exploitable attacks that don't have this weakness. To begin with, cooldown problems only really matters if the attack is sufficiently defended, so it's already with its coherence problems. Having characters who center around the concept of high cooldown and then not have to worry about it themselves screams the sort of reason you nerfed Meta Knight in the transition from Brawl to Smash 4. Ergo, I suggest double-checking these two's cooldown on their attacks to cover against bad gameplay. I do understand that Fragile Speedsters tend to involve more vibrant gameplay, which is good, but what isn't good is when the counter play against them isn't clear--I need only point to the Bishop in Chess for making my point about what does work since they can't change space colors, making it immediately clear to work with that for evasion or have Pawns control given color spaces based on the given attacking Bishop. If Smash wants to stay easy to learn yet hard to master, characters like Pit and Little Mac should have their counter play be actually viable.
*Object respawning ability and dodge move cooldown - I'm bringing these two up simultaneously because if you notice with the Bold part already, I'll have the same suggestion for both in general. Note that I say in general, because I haven't forgotten that Olimar getting new Pikmin would involve simply pressing B while on the ground. Of course, the first part is additionally referring to ROB's laser chargeup, Robin's general equipment respawn, and Rosalina's Luma respawn, as well as the regeneration of Zelda's Phantom and the Pit duo's Guardian Orbitars, although I imagine the recharge for both ROB's Robo Burner and Villager's Balloon Trip can be included. Those given character components are supposed to make exhausting those characters feel progressive, but doing so where Smash 4 stands ends up being more trouble than it's worth. May I also point out that dodge move cooldown will likely be milked for all it's worth by, who else, the Fragile Speedster characters. What I propose is, if possible, have the respawn/chargeup/recharge stuff for the dodge moves and general object respawning happen much faster when just walking or standing than otherwise, and completely stop it for a second on an attack. I remember how Link in the transition from Brawl to Smash 4 had his Hylian Shield reworked to work when Link is walking and boy do I enjoy that:
More characters benefiting from walking to a significant amount, local or otherwise, would encourage players to slow down. I can see the argument for having running not get punished, at least at baseline, in the interest of pacing, but having more players be encouraged to walk and discouraged from excessive attacking would make the gameplay significantly more tactical. As for Olimar, having the maturity stages actually provide useful, emphasized effect would really help. Fortunately, as I do see, Olimar's Smashes and Grab slightly risk the Pikmin, but his Tilts are natural attacks and the Aerials are quick to put the Pikmin away, and that's not even going into how Pikmin Throw has been a notorious camping tool, one that by the way involves a problem in the Olimar VS Kirby matchup (please address that too), so encouraging troop care would do a lot to encourage some more interesting gameplay from him. Really, that's the big thing: to foster more vibrant yet also methodical gameplay building off of what is available.
*Speed stats in general - let's face it: speed stats are guaranteed to be more powerful than power stats due to their versatility. Maybe not necessarily in FFAs, but in 1V1s, there is definitely a lot of space for a Fragile Speedster to work with even on smaller stages. Now I did mention that speed stats provide better versatility, whereas power stats basically enhance given options and positioning, which implies that speed stat characters wouldn't be as good out of the box. No doubt this makes it tempting to make speed stat characters more powerful--in fact, I now suspect that's what happened with Brawl Meta Knight. The problem with just doing that is how speed stats reduce effort in positioning and make cheesing strategies easier. Entry barriers for the Mighty Glacier's effectiveness work, and in fact is what I was liking about Kid Icarus Uprising's power system at the start, but there should be actual reward for choosing to go through clear risk. There should be a way to overcome that risk in the first place too, but the only thing I could figure over the years counters speed stats in games aside from having one of the character's own is raw defensive power, whether direct or subtle. Perhaps more than anything, I suggest for defensive power stats such as Weight to be given heightened usefulness to the point of intended slightly overshooting. If trade-offs to this suggestion get involved, they would just have to make sure they improve the gameplay, maybe by proving developer intent at least as long as the countering against defensive power better emphasizes creativity over safety. I agree that raw defensive power under basic game design can be rather automatic, which would undermine the point that the characters with it would be because the characters are adepts making the armor instead of the armor making the characters, but at the same time, defensive power being useful enough in practice adds to flavor, both directly and indirectly. Speaking of indirectly, since raw attack power tends to be the straight counter to raw defensive power, I ought to point out about the Fragile Speedster/Glass Cannon hybrids. I already mentioned about Little Mac, of course, and by the way, may I point out that bad recovery doesn't help an opponent without the opponent doing excessive outplaying, moreso when the strengths are still their own wall. May I also point out, moving on, that Shulk's Monados feel overboard, which might work with Xenoblade's apparent context about him, but even then, in particular, Buster Monado making comboing ability easier because of the reduced knockback in addition to the already blatantly heightened damage, for negligible, clearly outweighed drawback. And I don't even need to mention about Cloud or Bayonetta, though those two ARE brought to your attention. The general idea I'm getting at here is that Glass Cannon characters need to be watched carefully, especially if they have high speed stats, for balance to work well at all. I'm thinking about what had happened with weapon modifiers in Kid Icarus Uprising: it was not uncommon for somebody like me, using virtually superlative defensive power modifiers (Overall DEF+8, Health+6) and Super Armor and no defense deficiency Powers active (this was due to weapon type), to lose half my health to individual attacks from seemingly random weapon types--I think anybody in their right mind would equally find it bogus to need Aries Armor or some lame way out invincibility power to stop that. I can hear the argument that Glass Cannons aren't easy to use well, but really, I bring up the Counter Play point: that the Glass Cannons can stay a safe distance forcing their opponents to play extremely defensive because the opponent has no choice due to inability to hit and will end up DPSed to death anyway with laughably little they can do about it--I brought up Kid Icarus Uprising because that's exactly what happened there, despite KIU having more anti-kiting tools to begin with. Believe me, the Grid Reading concept severely struggled to even amount to anything more than some party trick, one that relies on the party even having another KIU cart owner in the first place. Smash would really need to pay attention to stop degenerate gameplay where either both sides camp or the game is guaranteed to be decided by the character select screen.
*Move finesse balance - something I enjoy is when closing the distance as the Mighty Glacier/Melee Tornado hybrid isn't a complete auto-win but is an opportunity to bring a very quick end to the battle, to make it clear that it's the player who makes the power instead of the other way around. Kid Icarus Uprising involves the basic idea that combo finishers and dash attacks would have high enough cooldown that evading them would surely permit counterattack even through something like the Super Armor power, so there's incentive, especially for clubs, to use only the first combo strike, which encourages finesse with the fire button. This sort of design would of course be involved in Smash, and something I want to bring up for its good reason is Samus's Jab and the way it is designed, namely that Jab 1 causes too much knockback for auto-linking into Jab 2, something I hear Ultimate makes doubly sure of. I'm understanding why, because I have played Metroid: Samus Returns so I know how the Melee Counter rewards methodical play while staying true to Samus's calculating style, and the Jab 2 comes across as similar enough. Of course, what I want to get to is how Jab 1 can transition into about anything, not just Jab 2, given enough finesse. Obviously that's good and artful design, why complain about it? I'm not complaining about Samus's Jab, actually, just what it brings up with other characters, because I was intending to make a point about the art with it intending to cite given frame data, and notice that some characters have seemingly random frame data that doesn't suggest structure. I do follow that art is meant to make sure that there's always something fresh, but that's not where I get concerned. Where I get bothered is when there aren't better basics to the involved martial arts, and we end up with everybody doing things like milking dash attacks because those were never given any cooldown, or Jab finishers on shielding characters because the cooldown is barely any higher and Jab flurries don't have their finisher's timing telegraphed whatsoever. I daresay game design documents such as comparison spreadsheets that would help find what is following working standards for each given attack, what is following character art, and what is just too random, should be used more actively. A fast-paced game works as a method of adversity, but what would also work would be to encourage cleaner thinking by reward, instead of giving easy wins to people who want shortcuts and overemphasis on the body.
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I hope you don't have too much issue with my advice. There may be stuff I missed with a character roster that's already big enough--I know I didn't mention prior about the Rosalina VS Mother series boys matchup involving Gravitational Pull on PSI Thunder in all its shenanigans, I'll just mention that real quick. And we can't forget that the new characters would be around to potentially cause problems to the balance even outside lack of familiarity. I wouldn't know what to say beyond what I already said, because if anything, I'd rather play blind against the new characters, but I do hope they have intuitive enough weaknesses. For something that could help provide a guideline on that point, here's my first match ever against a Bayonetta:
First match in the video, and yes, I literally beat Witch Time on its very first use against me and I didn't even realize it until well after the match. I also point to Bayonetta having short range rolls, which I ultimately capitalized upon to game winning effect. Obviously, Bayonetta showed balance problems regardless, but considering I could get to figure something out, making sure the new characters' strengths and weaknesses balance each other out just has to strike a fine balance. Remember: I live in California, which even by the US's standards has some definite problems with shallowness. I know how Japan has a track record of thinking us Americans as boorish idiots as it is, on actually founded basis at that. I'm making a point that Japan shouldn't be afraid to adhere to Show Don't Tell actively enough, and definitely shouldn't be afraid of exchanging ideas with other cultures. I follow that martial arts is meant to teach the value of patience and finesse. I provide the point that handling of raw power builds off of creativity. I don't doubt Ultimate would live up to that name by finding the happy medium.
I may as well leave off with this Latin saying to summarize this entire 8K word email: ignis aurum probat.
