Some projectiles need some SERIOUS balancing.

[Turk Injaydii]

There are some projectiles in this game that are just too spammable and/or strong. Now, that's not to say all are that way. The majority are done VERY well. One of my favorites is Ivysaur's Razor Leaf. It has a bit of start up, but not so much that its sluggish. It also requires spacing to be most effective and hit the Critical Hit with its powerful knockback. I believe that it is the most well done projectile in the game, so hats off to you and I hope you don't change it a bit. Other good examples of characters with viable and well balanced projectiles/spacing tools include Ness, Lucas, Pit, Toon Link, Lucario, Charizard, Yoshi, Wolf, Snake, Luigi, and Samus (though I feel super missiles should have kb adjusted to kill off the sides around 130% instead of sending opponents upward)....

HOWEVER, some characters have projectiles that are simply too good and the player can spam them to control the neutral w/o putting any effort into their play. Examples include....

-Link. Bombs kill, are thrown super far and fast, and cannot be reflected. If Fox reflects or Mario capes a bomb, it explodes...that's stupid. No other word for it. All his arrows kill around 100 when fully charged, bomb arrows kill even earlier. Boomerang is simply a constant multihit box that is as tall as a character. All of this adds up to a spammy mess that is honestly no fun to play against, especially if the other player is using a character that doesn't have a reflector or projectile of his own. Bombs should be reverted back to a tool that allowed for combos and trap setting; as they are in every other Smash. It would add more depth to Link play and benefit him in a familiar, balanced way. Arrows should have kill power toned down. I'd suggest nerfing knockback and adjusting the angle to about 45 degrees instead of one that is nearly straight toward the blastzone. Boomerang is crazy. I like the idea behind it, but its just too good of a move. It has multihits, it drags opponents back to you, the hit box is HUGE...I'd suggest just giving him Melee Link's boomerang or Smash 4's Gale Boomerang. As of right now, Link's kit is just all too much and I really hope you all balance him more appropriately for 4.0f.

-Falco. Slow lasers are all he has to do for neutral. THAT'S IT. Just jump up and down and shoot lasers. This gives him complete control of the stage because they are lingering hit boxes that are present for a very long time and there's no limit to how many he can have out at once. Falco is a FANTASTIC character w/o them, so I don't understand why they were ever put in. They're silly, and I get you guys like silly...but its silly done wrong. It makes an MU against a character without a projectile HEAVILY skewed in Falco's favor. He'd honestly be perfect if slow lasers were just removed. If you didn't want to do that, make it so that he can only have 2 slow lasers out at a time so that Falco's can't just set up a wall of lasers and spam them over and over in the neutral.

-Olimar. I honestly love the idea behind the Pikmin. Knock back direction varies depending on the Pikmin's color. Very cool idea and it makes Olimar really fun and interesting. HOWEVER, white pikmin are just broken. A character having a PROJECTILE that can SPIKE is just absurdly over powered. Again, I love the varying knockback directions. But Olimar white Pikmin should definitely be adjusted to have new trait. As of right now, Olimar can spike you standing safely on stage. That's OP. Even by Minus's standards.


As always, I'd just like to be clear and say this is constructive criticism. There were moments above when I was blunt, but I don't think that's necessarily bad. The game is in beta, after all. No one expects it to be perfect. Providing you with this feedback in order to help you guys make 4.0f the best it can be. Hope you guys of the Minus Dev Team will take this into consideration.

 

[Neville]

Idk man the only projectiles I want to see be less spammable are Waddle Toss, Waddle Toss, Waddle Toss, and last but not least Waddle Toss.

 

[Turk Injaydii]

I haven't seen a D3 play yet, but the stuff I listed definitely rises concern amongst the Middle TN players in my area. I'd be interested to hear input from others who have scenes in their area.

 

[Bent 00]

I haven't seen a D3 play yet [...]

Here's some Dedede footage from an older version of Minus. He's... frustrating to play against, to say the least.

Side Note: It's too bad nothing came along to fill the void DukeBattleDrive left when Glyph stopped updating it.
A YouTube channel full of Minus gameplay can be very helpful for learning new characters, balancing discussions, and more.

 

[Turk Injaydii]

Here's some Dedede footage from an older version of Minus. He's... frustrating to play against, to say the least.

Side Note: It's too bad nothing came along to fill the void DukeBattleDrive left when Glyph stopped updating it.
A YouTube channel full of Minus gameplay can be very helpful for learning new characters, balancing discussions, and more.

Oh my GAWD!!!! That was so incredibly boring to watch. D3 just has to camp and press side b all match until his opponent approaches...And that's not even silly or a display of "Minus charm" or any other excuse a proponent of the character could say. That needs a nerf. He should have a limit of 3 waddledees out at a time, and the move should definitely have more start up and cool down. Maybe even consider implementing a timer that restricts the amount of time another waddledee can be planted once one dies; like Rosa's Luma or Zelda's phantom in Smash 4.

I really, really, REALLY hope all the characters mentioned in this thread get adjusted. Because right now, they require very minimal skill to play. Especially Falco,D3, and Link. They can just spam in the neutral until the opponent slips up. Its no fun to watch or play against. The players at my weekly even apologize when the win that way.

After bracket, a Link player posted in our local facebook group: "Sorry to anyone that had to face my Link tonight. I know it wasn't fair and I know he's cancerous" (which is slang for saying he's incredibly cheap).

I lost to an Olimar main who switched to Falco to counterpick my Ike. He just spammed slow lasers the ENTIRE MATCH. And when he won, he said "sorry man, your Ike was so good. I couldn't beat you w/o playing like an asshole." He then said he would get mad playing this game in a cash bracket because cheap play like that does not reflect player skill, and therefore he would not be okay with losing money to that kind of player. And he's not the only player to speak that way about the game. Everyone in my scene loves the game. The general consensus is that Minus 4.0b has aspects that are incredibly unique and fun, but there are some glaring issues that make serious competitive play nearly impossible in certain MUs/situations.

I really wish my players would get on here and support the threads I make about these issues so you guys could see the amount of players that agree with this, but I suppose they just don't feel the need to because they can just play Smash 4, PM, or Melee if you guys don't fix what's wrong...anyway, I really love this game and the fact that my Smash scene thinks its so fun. I just hope you all take this feedback into consideration, balance Minus a bit better than it is now, and help Minus be the incredibly fun, competitive title we all know it can be.

 

[Thor]

There are some projectiles in this game that are just too spammable and/or strong. Now, that's not to say all are that way. The majority are done VERY well. One of my favorites is Ivysaur's Razor Leaf. It has a bit of start up, but not so much that its sluggish. It also requires spacing to be most effective and hit the Critical Hit with its powerful knockback. I believe that it is the most well done projectile in the game, so hats off to you and I hope you don't change it a bit. Other good examples of characters with viable and well balanced projectiles/spacing tools include Ness, Lucas, Pit, Toon Link, Lucario, Charizard, Yoshi, Wolf, Snake, Luigi, and Samus (though I feel super missiles should have kb adjusted to kill off the sides around 130% instead of sending opponents upward)....

HOWEVER, some characters have projectiles that are simply too good and the player can spam them to control the neutral w/o putting any effort into their play. Examples include....

-Link. Bombs kill, are thrown super far and fast, and cannot be reflected. If Fox reflects or Mario capes a bomb, it explodes...that's stupid. No other word for it. All his arrows kill around 100 when fully charged, bomb arrows kill even earlier. Boomerang is simply a constant multihit box that is as tall as a character. All of this adds up to a spammy mess that is honestly no fun to play against, especially if the other player is using a character that doesn't have a reflector or projectile of his own. Bombs should be reverted back to a tool that allowed for combos and trap setting; as they are in every other Smash. It would add more depth to Link play and benefit him in a familiar, balanced way. Arrows should have kill power toned down. I'd suggest nerfing knockback and adjusting the angle to about 45 degrees instead of one that is nearly straight toward the blastzone. Boomerang is crazy. I like the idea behind it, but its just too good of a move. It has multihits, it drags opponents back to you, the hit box is HUGE...I'd suggest just giving him Melee Link's boomerang or Smash 4's Gale Boomerang. As of right now, Link's kit is just all too much and I really hope you all balance him more appropriately for 4.0f.

-Falco. Slow lasers are all he has to do for neutral. THAT'S IT. Just jump up and down and shoot lasers. This gives him complete control of the stage because they are lingering hit boxes that are present for a very long time and there's no limit to how many he can have out at once. Falco is a FANTASTIC character w/o them, so I don't understand why they were ever put in. They're silly, and I get you guys like silly...but its silly done wrong. It makes an MU against a character without a projectile HEAVILY skewed in Falco's favor. He'd honestly be perfect if slow lasers were just removed. If you didn't want to do that, make it so that he can only have 2 slow lasers out at a time so that Falco's can't just set up a wall of lasers and spam them over and over in the neutral.

-Olimar. I honestly love the idea behind the Pikmin. Knock back direction varies depending on the Pikmin's color. Very cool idea and it makes Olimar really fun and interesting. HOWEVER, white pikmin are just broken. A character having a PROJECTILE that can SPIKE is just absurdly over powered. Again, I love the varying knockback directions. But Olimar white Pikmin should definitely be adjusted to have new trait. As of right now, Olimar can spike you standing safely on stage. That's OP. Even by Minus's standards.


As always, I'd just like to be clear and say this is constructive criticism. There were moments above when I was blunt, but I don't think that's necessarily bad. The game is in beta, after all. No one expects it to be perfect. Providing you with this feedback in order to help you guys make 4.0f the best it can be. Hope you guys of the Minus Dev Team will take this into consideration.

I still have no idea what your skill level is or how long you've played, so I have no idea how much you've explored the options and counterplay to them, but I'll address each concern with what I know.

Link:
- You can reflect bombs, but the trajectories are unaltered, so if you don't reflect them early on, they just fall at your feet and explode. Either that, or something went very wrong in balancing, as they are meant to be reflectable. Furthermore, you can catch bombs and either z-drop them or throw them back at him. This really shouldn't be a problem.

- It's hard to actually find time to charge an arrow in Minus - you can try to do it with a boomerang out, but if you're holding a bomb, you have a timer there, and if you don't, you've now let all your projectiles reset when the arrow goes away and they can quickly close the gap. Charged arrows are kind of annoying for edgeguarding, but if we're honest, arrows have never been that useful in any smash game. Making them KO as early as they do seems strange to me [I miss the RNG effects arrows since those could be useful uncharged], but they're hardly busted against most of the cast, just annoying because you have to wait to shield them or else guess and jump away and behind him [doable on nearly every stage, and easy on any stage with platforms since you can just go to higher ground].

- Boomerang is kind of silly, but they didn't want to remove the gale effect. Reflecting this sucker will sometimes KO him outright if he's not able to shield it, which either forces him to shield or give up a lot of position. Also, as someone who plays PM/Melee Link, your suggested nerfs are frankly terrible. It *might* be appropriate to give him a boomerang with no windbox if it has some kind of PM 3.02 duration [I'm not sure of the frame data of what he has now], but Link having Melee or Smash 4 boomerang would be garbage for Minus power-levels.

I personally think bombs need a KB reduction, but you seem to have forgotten or ignored that Link has slow up-close options [relatively speaking] and garbage landing lag on uair and dair, and he's a perfect weight and fallspeed to get combo'd all over the place, so he's somewhat fragile up close. Boomerang could be changed but it would need to be either its current speed [if already buffed from Melee/Brawl/Smash 4] or faster to compensate [and they don't want overlap with Tink boomerang, so they'd have to be careful there too]. Arrows are obnoxious but situational [like Ganondorf's grounding hitbox on aerial Wizard's foot], so I don't think much more nerfing is required [I'd like arrows to be deterministic personally]. I'm also surprised you didn't mention his zair lol.

At one point Link was buffed to compete with some of the sillier top tiers, and while he was nerfed somewhat, I don't think they fully reverted stuff.

Falco:
- Six laser limit, unless they removed that for 4.0b [it was a 6 laser limit in every iteration where he had perma-slow lasers]. So no, you can't just spam them to control the entire stage, you can take control of the stage if they don't do anything about it though. He also loses the long-range pressure option of fast lasers which is useful vs fast characters like Falcon, so they're a more situational tool. Most characters can also jump over SHDL pretty easily when they're moving slowly, and if you close the gap on Falco, he can't set up a laser wall [fast or slow], and can't do laser laser side+B as a setup, so they're not necessarily better than fast lasers even in neutral.

- Slow lasers also make uthrow not work at all if you know how to SDI, and bthrow can be easily SDI'd out of [though if you don't know how it can KO hilariously early]. There's a trade-off to slow lasers - they were in old iterations and removed because his throws did not work right, but they came back as a taunt-switching option because some people [such as myself] liked them. While his dthrow is generally good, it can be DI'd to have no true followups beyond low percents [or maybe even at 0] as far as I know, so losing those options is a trade-off.

Falco's slow lasers are obnoxious, but they're hardly unbeatable, as a lot of characters have great burst movement options to punish them. They do cause a serious struggle for some characters like DK and Ganondorf, but even when you set up a wall, you get a combo starter (or free grab if they hold shield), which is threatening, but Falco's zero-to-death ability is not quite as high as others if you manage to keep your DI onstage, and if they drop the combo unintentionally, they won't have the space to set up another laser wall without some sort of interaction where they come out ahead. Slow lasers may go away anyway, but I don't think they're overpowered.

Olimar:
- Spam nair/body-covering hitbox. Or a counter if you have one. It knocks Pikmin off for free. And white pikmin die early enough to where anything should do it.

- White Pikmin are a meteor smash, not a spike. Sonic and Ganondorf are the only characters to have a true spike in Minus, and Ganondorf's is on his up+B [and the angle might actually be outside of the meteor cancel angle, but it certainly doesn't look that way... but Sonic dair is one for sure]. So meteor cancel them.

- Olimar comboing into White Pikmin requires some decent skill to pull off, and it can meteor cancelled for quite a while [I guess it may send you downward too fast at like 120 to reliably meteor cancel from a reasonable height, but he has KO options that KO by then anyway]. I think it looks cool and can set up some sick edgeguards. White usmash is also hilarious.

If your only complaint with Olimar is that white pikmin meteor smash, he really doesn't need a change. His ability to put out Pikmin can be frightening, but their ability to meteor smash is offset by their extremely low health [they are the most fragile of the bunch, with lowest health and no elemental immunities] and the aforementioned meteor cancelling.

Also, a general comment: Maybe you and your play-group actually lab things and try to find counterplay for quite a while before posting, but you seem to suggest an awful lot of nerfs to things most members find acceptable [LB's response is an example of our difference of opinions]. I spent a while trying to figure out how to gimp Falco before asking for Firebird nerfs [my main, notably], and was one of the last to get behind nerfing Counter -> Eruption [you could cancel counter into charged eruption in the past].

While you can find posts where I push for nerfs, I am so adamant about Sonic's dair because there is no counterplay to getting spiked except "don't get hit" AND it's an asymmetrical advantage [I would not care about his dair if true spikes were intended in Minus, but Lucario up+B used to accidentally true spiked and it was removed because "those are not intended" - if Falcon, Ganondorf, Link, etc. all had true spikes it would be a non-issue, it's because they don't that I care]. And I think if you ever play against a good Luigi, I would predict you'll become quickly disgusted with his land-cancelled Thunderbrand [it comes out immediately on landing after a short time airborne, meaning you can cut its startup by landing], but almost no one here complains about that [the old super armor is another story]. And I also sometimes push for crazy buffs just to see what would happen [giving Falcon his 64 usmash and making the knee like Melee instead of the super knee would definitely be huge buffs, but they'd be hilarious, and prior to this patch, could be patched out subsequently, but if they ended up being fair... yay buffs!]

I'll be available for Wi-Fi sometime after next weekend, so if you have Wi-Fi on a Wii [not Netplay, I don't have that], I'd be interested in playing you. And by all means, use the cheapest tactics you can cook up with your best characters - I want you to show me why you feel these things are so broken, because I frankly don't see it.

 

[Turk Injaydii]

I have no interest in playing you. Sound kind of arrogant. Just posting concerns my players have brought to my attention, not looking to get in a pissing contest with someone out to prove me wrong.

I'll admit, these were all issues just brought to my attention by players after Friday's bracket. I was a spectator in most situations. Labbing didn't take place, but it didn't need to in order to see how obnoxious these projectiles are.

As for Links bombs, I saw a Fox try to reflect and a Mario try to cape. In both instances, the bomb exploded. So idk what to tell ya. Just know that it was incredibly stupid to watch a player get killed for making the correct read to counter the bomb throw with a reflector/cape.

For Falco, never said his lasers were unbeatable. But they are beyond spammable and make a MU incredibly frustrating and completely unfun. Bayo in smash 4 isn't unbeatable, but again, just a character with an obnoxious toolset that makes certain MUs tilted and unfun.

Olimar... whatever man. I wasn't looking for semantics. I know meteor cancelling them is possible. If yall want to leave it, ok. I won't back down on saying a projectile that meteors is incredibly unfair and stupid. Nothing anywhere close to that ever has or will ever exist in another smash, and for good reason.

 

[Bent 00]

Turk Injaydii: Thor doesn't mean to come across as arrogant, he just offered to play you so you can try to show him what you're talking about in an actual match. I recommend that you play him sometime -- Thor is one of the most knowledgeable Minus players, with the skill to win tournaments. He's also one of the remaining few willing to reply to discussions like this in-depth, and discuss Minus at length. Playing some of our Minus veterans will seriously teach you a lot about the game, if you're willing to learn.

Also, remember what I said about posting evidence to back up your claims?

A suggestion: If your playgroup has a specific complaint about Minus, posting proof of the problem would back up your argument. If you can't capture video, sharing replay files is easy. Even snapshots can work in some situations. This isn't absolutely necessary, but I've found that posting hard evidence gets problems solved a lot quicker.

 

[Gold_TSG]

I'm still waiting to see Thor's novel in the book store.

 

[Neville]

I have no interest in playing you. Sound kind of arrogant. Just posting concerns my players have brought to my attention, not looking to get in a pissing contest with someone out to prove me wrong.

I'll admit, these were all issues just brought to my attention by players after Friday's bracket. I was a spectator in most situations. Labbing didn't take place, but it didn't need to in order to see how obnoxious these projectiles are.

As for Links bombs, I saw a Fox try to reflect and a Mario try to cape. In both instances, the bomb exploded. So idk what to tell ya. Just know that it was incredibly stupid to watch a player get killed for making the correct read to counter the bomb throw with a reflector/cape.

For Falco, never said his lasers were unbeatable. But they are beyond spammable and make a MU incredibly frustrating and completely unfun. Bayo in smash 4 isn't unbeatable, but again, just a character with an obnoxious toolset that makes certain MUs tilted and unfun.

Olimar... whatever man. I wasn't looking for semantics. I know meteor cancelling them is possible. If yall want to leave it, ok. I won't back down on saying a projectile that meteors is incredibly unfair and stupid. Nothing anywhere close to that ever has or will ever exist in another smash, and for good reason.

Well, I'm going to repost because I suck at being a mod:

I'm always up for Wifi games as well. I also have a Youtube channel where I post stuff like this video of BC and I doing Iron Mans:

Unfortunately I post sporatically because my Capture Card only occasionally works correctly but if anyone has replays they want to send me so I can upload them please do.

 

[Thor]

I have no interest in playing you. Sound kind of arrogant. Just posting concerns my players have brought to my attention, not looking to get in a pissing contest with someone out to prove me wrong.

I'll admit, these were all issues just brought to my attention by players after Friday's bracket. I was a spectator in most situations. Labbing didn't take place, but it didn't need to in order to see how obnoxious these projectiles are.

As for Links bombs, I saw a Fox try to reflect and a Mario try to cape. In both instances, the bomb exploded. So idk what to tell ya. Just know that it was incredibly stupid to watch a player get killed for making the correct read to counter the bomb throw with a reflector/cape.

For Falco, never said his lasers were unbeatable. But they are beyond spammable and make a MU incredibly frustrating and completely unfun. Bayo in smash 4 isn't unbeatable, but again, just a character with an obnoxious toolset that makes certain MUs tilted and unfun.

Olimar... whatever man. I wasn't looking for semantics. I know meteor cancelling them is possible. If yall want to leave it, ok. I won't back down on saying a projectile that meteors is incredibly unfair and stupid. Nothing anywhere close to that ever has or will ever exist in another smash, and for good reason.

If someone plays a game once or twice and immediately complains, they're not working hard enough to play the game. If that were the kind of balancing used, we'd need to nerf Ganondorf's Warlock Punch in Smash 4 because it has armor and KOs at zero if you hold the wrong way as Jigglypuff. I'm offering to play you because if I can demonstrate counterplay to the issues you've identified, you can bring these solutions back to your players and they can work to advance the local metagame instead of complaining or struggling to adapt and potentially quitting.

I genuinely can't tell how much time people put into the game, but if they play a game where things are meant to be obscenely strong and complain a projectile is obscenely strong, then they must have missed the memo of "Everything is buffed." The ability to use projectiles with low cooldown gives Minus a very low skill floor - someone who plays only casually can pick up Link and beat someone who has played smash for a while, but has not really taken the time to learn anti-projectile strategies, because projectiles in this game are more powerful to keep up with buffed other characters. It's not necessarily fair to people new to the game, but as skill levels rise, the projectiles become less detrimental.

Because of this, the Minus dev team is thus stuck either trying to create some perfect projectile that is useful but not annoying at all levels, or else they can make projectiles that are broken to new people and usable to more skilled players -or- make projectiles that are useful to new people but useless to more skilled players. A prime example of this is the Gandouken - it looks cool, has big range, and it's safe enough to throw out for edgeguarding, but against someone who's played for a while, it will basically never work. On the opposite end, Melee Falco's lasers can be extremely oppressive to new players, while there are workarounds at mid+ level play that make them useful but not absurd. The projectiles you've identified all seem to fall on the latter end, or else they're actually too powerful, but based on what I've seen, I'm not that convinced.

I'll look into Link's bombs. Again, I think they should be nerfed anyway, but they should still be reflectable. If they're not, that's something extra you caught that the dev team needs to fix.

Falco's lasers may make things unfun for some, but they're a tool he has because of his design. I find fighting laser heavy Falcos interesting because as annoying as they are, purely camping with them is a very, very slow way to rack up damage by Minus standards [a laser does 3%, and while Minus removed stale moves, with slow lasers, eating a full batch of 6 does ~18%. And he now has to shoot 6 more. This is as compared to one Ganondorf aerial or two aerials/moves of almost anyone else in the game doing more than 18%]. Further, lasers are not as effective at locking the cast down in Minus as they are in a game like Melee, because most of the cast in Minus has better movement than in Melee [between RAR and higher ground/airspeeds].

Again, if you really feel it's a problem, the dev team can force him into only fast lasers again, but I don't think that will fix your problem with how "spammable" they are, it'll probably just move the goalposts. The thing is that instead of laser laser anything [from walking up inside slow lasers], you get laser laser side+b [I'm not sure how true it is, but it immediately closes the gap and lets Falco often start a combo with SH dair out of the grounded side+b]. Grosser still is laser laser side+b laser laser [where he does 2 close up lasers, side+Bs through them, then jump-cancels the side+b and b-reverses a laser so he can continue the assault from a distance].

If projectiles that meteor smash are broken and unfair, you need to make a thread about how unbelievably broken Sonic's spring is, as that's a projectile that meteors, and Sonic can use it while very safely above you [and land onstage with dair with no lag]. Also, Samus's slip bomb custom in Smash 4 is a meteor smash. So there's an example of a special that's a projectile in an official smash game. Neither of them move horizontally, but the concept of a projectile that meteor smashes exists in two other places already [and you can't meteor cancel in Smash 4].

The irony of this whole thing is that if you go back and look at my statuses from before, you'll see me say somewhere that I think most projectiles in the game could use a nerf - but I really don't think the projectiles you've identified are problems, not for the reasons you identified anyway. Link's boomerang being out quickly isn't much of a problem at all to me - it's that it combos into spin attack if they get sucked in [yay charge moves!]. Link's bombs aren't a problem because they don't get reflected properly [that is annoying if it's the case], it's because they KO at 110 on floaties when they have no business doing that given all of Link's potent close range KO options like dair and spin attack. Arrows bother me because it's almost impossible to react to the arrow to tell how to DI, but at least they're not a charge move like Samus charge shot. Olimar's pikmin are to me annoying because of the ridiculous angles they send you at, making DIing stuff really weird if he's also in the middle of comboing you with standard moves, but the meteor smash is to me is often useful because I can meteor cancel with a jump and immediate nair and finally get the little dudes off me. Or if I miss the meteor cancel, at least the KO looked hilarious.

Also, if you want to talk about really annoying projectiles, ask your local Smash 4 Yoshi main to try Minus eggs. Those things are actually really really good [like Waddles as LB pointed out, but less difficult to use effectively].

 

[Neville]

If someone plays a game once or twice and immediately complains, they're not working hard enough to play the game. If that were the kind of balancing used, we'd need to nerf Ganondorf's Warlock Punch in Smash 4 because it has armor and KOs at zero if you hold the wrong way as Jigglypuff. I'm offering to play you because if I can demonstrate counterplay to the issues you've identified, you can bring these solutions back to your players and they can work to advance the local metagame instead of complaining or struggling to adapt and potentially quitting.

I genuinely can't tell how much time people put into the game, but if they play a game where things are meant to be obscenely strong and complain a projectile is obscenely strong, then they must have missed the memo of "Everything is buffed." The ability to use projectiles with low cooldown gives Minus a very low skill floor - someone who plays only casually can pick up Link and beat someone who has played smash for a while, but has not really taken the time to learn anti-projectile strategies, because projectiles in this game are more powerful to keep up with buffed other characters. It's not necessarily fair to people new to the game, but as skill levels rise, the projectiles become less detrimental.

Because of this, the Minus dev team is thus stuck either trying to create some perfect projectile that is useful but not annoying at all levels, or else they can make projectiles that are broken to new people and usable to more skilled players -or- make projectiles that are useful to new people but useless to more skilled players. A prime example of this is the Gandouken - it looks cool, has big range, and it's safe enough to throw out for edgeguarding, but against someone who's played for a while, it will basically never work. On the opposite end, Melee Falco's lasers can be extremely oppressive to new players, while there are workarounds at mid+ level play that make them useful but not absurd. The projectiles you've identified all seem to fall on the latter end, or else they're actually too powerful, but based on what I've seen, I'm not that convinced.

I'll look into Link's bombs. Again, I think they should be nerfed anyway, but they should still be reflectable. If they're not, that's something extra you caught that the dev team needs to fix.

Falco's lasers may make things unfun for some, but they're a tool he has because of his design. I find fighting laser heavy Falcos interesting because as annoying as they are, purely camping with them is a very, very slow way to rack up damage by Minus standards [a laser does 3%, and while Minus removed stale moves, with slow lasers, eating a full batch of 6 does ~18%. And he now has to shoot 6 more. This is as compared to one Ganondorf aerial or two aerials/moves of almost anyone else in the game doing more than 18%]. Further, lasers are not as effective at locking the cast down in Minus as they are in a game like Melee, because most of the cast in Minus has better movement than in Melee [between RAR and higher ground/airspeeds].

Again, if you really feel it's a problem, the dev team can force him into only fast lasers again, but I don't think that will fix your problem with how "spammable" they are, it'll probably just move the goalposts. The thing is that instead of laser laser anything [from walking up inside slow lasers], you get laser laser side+b [I'm not sure how true it is, but it immediately closes the gap and lets Falco often start a combo with SH dair out of the grounded side+b]. Grosser still is laser laser side+b laser laser [where he does 2 close up lasers, side+Bs through them, then jump-cancels the side+b and b-reverses a laser so he can continue the assault from a distance].

If projectiles that meteor smash are broken and unfair, you need to make a thread about how unbelievably broken Sonic's spring is, as that's a projectile that meteors, and Sonic can use it while very safely above you [and land onstage with dair with no lag]. Also, Samus's slip bomb custom in Smash 4 is a meteor smash. So there's an example of a special that's a projectile in an official smash game. Neither of them move horizontally, but the concept of a projectile that meteor smashes exists in two other places already [and you can't meteor cancel in Smash 4].

The irony of this whole thing is that if you go back and look at my statuses from before, you'll see me say somewhere that I think most projectiles in the game could use a nerf - but I really don't think the projectiles you've identified are problems, not for the reasons you identified anyway. Link's boomerang being out quickly isn't much of a problem at all to me - it's that it combos into spin attack if they get sucked in [yay charge moves!]. Link's bombs aren't a problem because they don't get reflected properly [that is annoying if it's the case], it's because they KO at 110 on floaties when they have no business doing that given all of Link's potent close range KO options like dair and spin attack. Arrows bother me because it's almost impossible to react to the arrow to tell how to DI, but at least they're not a charge move like Samus charge shot. Olimar's pikmin are to me annoying because of the ridiculous angles they send you at, making DIing stuff really weird if he's also in the middle of comboing you with standard moves, but the meteor smash is to me is often useful because I can meteor cancel with a jump and immediate nair and finally get the little dudes off me. Or if I miss the meteor cancel, at least the KO looked hilarious.

Also, if you want to talk about really annoying projectiles, ask your local Smash 4 Yoshi main to try Minus eggs. Those things are actually really really good [like Waddles as LB pointed out, but less difficult to use effectively].

Yoshi's eggs are actually why I asked for Peach to at least have armour on a successful Toad counter, while they aren't the only attack that will punish Peach even if she gets the Toad, it's a really prominent example of one. IIRC, Samus's missiles do the same too. Waddles are annoying because even though they're meant to be traps, they're almost more effective as straight projectiles due to their knockback and low startup/endlag. DDD can be summerized as a character with this flowchart:
Are they far away?
-yes: Waddle Toss
-no: Are they in mid range?
-Yes: use one of his sped up tilts or aerials with good range to knock them away so you can toss Waddles at them again
No: Use his stupid frame 4 grab to throw them away so you can throw waddles at them

While pretty simplified this is basically DDDs play style. His moveset is so geared to this one, inflexible play style that I don't think any other characters in Minus is so rigid. A major component of this is Waddle Toss's speed and how rewarding it is for how little risk DDD is put into while using it. It also doesn't help that the speed of waddle toss's animation, as well as how fast Gordos fly makes it nearly impossible to react when a Gordo is thrown. Oh well, I guess you just had 22% tacked on or killed at stupidly low percents for a projectile that safe. Did I mention that Gordo chances in vBrawl are pretty much 5%? (It's barely less than that but idk what the chance is off the top of my head). Also, due to the dev team's mentality that nothing on the original character can be nerfed (the only instances I can think of this happening is Yoshi's refresh rate on his aerial egg roll due to infinites and ZSS dsmash endlag due to doing too much damage or something idk what the reason for this was actually) chances are its the same or even possibly higher than that. That is why I think DDD is a terribly designed character and why Waddle Toss is a stupid move.

 

[BC]

It's nice to finally see people speaking up about DDD. As a main of the character, I cannot express how boring he's become. Like Longbottom said, it's either throw a Waddle, Ftilt/Utilt them away, or instant grab them if they hit your shield. There's no reason to perform actual combos with him, because that would put DDD at risk of taking damage, or losing a stock. Meanwhile, Constant Waddle Tosses, throws, and tilts just keep on tacking on safe percent. And when you do want to go for a sylish combo with him involving the Waddles, you get the Gordo, and a lame kill that you didn't want. It's boring, and neither player likes it.

I used to love playing as DDD. Now, the only reason I play as him is if I happen to get him on random. And even then, if I do get him, I'll end up trying to play aggressive DDD just to have fun, and end up getting my ass handed to me, and the other player usually telling me something along the lines of, "Why didn't you spam? It's no fun fighting your DDD if you're not gonna play him right."

This. This is what made me stop playing as this character. No matter how I play him, I'm still gonna piss someone off in some way. There's no point in playing as him, if all it does is upset or bore people.

I pray that the changes made to DDD in 4.0f will make DDD a more fun character to play as, and not a character that relies on 2 to 3 moves, and still gets labelled as "top tier." I just want to have fun with him again... :/

 

[Neville]

Pin Clock take note.

 

[Pin Clock]

Noted

 

[Thor]

DDD was designed as a defensive character originally... I think the problem was asymmetrical nerfing left him with all the tools to stuff everything instead of the right tools in the right places with the right holes.

Because let's be real, nerfing this DDD and not MAX ROB or MAX Lucario or MAX Sheik [and maybe a few others, like whenever ridiculous Link with fast mortal draw was, and Falco when his recovery was super buffed because of the issues with gravity + slow firebird offstage I pointed out in addition to other good stuff that left... and I don't actually think Counte-ruption Ike was actually broken but I think he got nerfed since then and countering DDD's moves is usually a lot of damage, not to mention a list of others] would just be asking to make DDD a not-that-good fatty. But they all got nerfed in notable ways, and he... didn't. I think that's why this occurred, because instead of balancing the rest of the cast to those MAX level characters, we toned people down [RIP 53% Firefox ;_; ], seeming to have not toned down what really made him good [or him at all].

Then again, I suppose he's supposed to be king *somewhere*, and Minus could be a kingdom silly enough for the fat penguin. I wouldn't mind nerfs, but I just hope they preserve his identity [we don't need another large in-your-face grappler, there I said it].

 

[Kymaera K1ng]

I'll be available for Wi-Fi sometime after next weekend, so if you have Wi-Fi on a Wii [not Netplay, I don't have that], I'd be interested in playing you. And by all means, use the cheapest tactics you can cook up with your best characters - I want you to show me why you feel these things are so broken, because I frankly don't see it.

... Can I play you?

 

[Thor]

... Can I play you?

I need to get my Wii set back up, and I actually lost a cable that I need to connect my sensor bar to the Wii so it has power (>_>). But I'm either gonna get that replaced soon [I hope] or see if I can't put new batteries in it [since it can just always be plugged in I never really bothered with it] and then we can. Then hopefully we can play.

 

[Kymaera K1ng]

I need to get my Wii set back up, and I actually lost a cable that I need to connect my sensor bar to the Wii so it has power (>_>). But I'm either gonna get that replaced soon [I hope] or see if I can't put new batteries in it [since it can just always be plugged in I never really bothered with it] and then we can. Then hopefully we can play.

Nice

 

[Mawootad]

I need to get my Wii set back up, and I actually lost a cable that I need to connect my sensor bar to the Wii so it has power (>_>). But I'm either gonna get that replaced soon [I hope] or see if I can't put new batteries in it [since it can just always be plugged in I never really bothered with it] and then we can. Then hopefully we can play.

If all you're missing is a sensor bar there are ways around that. The sensor bar is actually just an infrared light source, so if you have a pair of candles/lighters/any other flame sources you can set those up on top of your TV and if done correctly your Wiimotes will work. After you get your Wii booted once if you have Homebrew Channel you can set up PriiLoader and have your Wii boot directly to Homebrew Channel, forever getting rid of the need to use Wiimotes for Brawl.

 

[Bent 00]

You can also use a Classic Controller to move the Wii Menu pointer around, even with no sensor bar attached.

 

[Thor]

You can also use a Classic Controller to move the Wii Menu pointer around, even with no sensor bar attached.

I don't have one of those, and I knew about the flame method Maw mentioned, but I don't think I have the lighers for it.

Given that a new sensor bar of the kind I have is 10 dollars to order online, I think I'll just look to buy a new one as long as it comes with the cord... it's a rather small fix if I'm right.

 

[BC]

If you happen to have a Guitar Hero controller for the Wii, the control stick on that would work to navigate the menus. It's a bit awkward, but it's worked for me in the past.