What I don't like about Zeus EX

[bandeaux]

So, I was told that Zeus was much better and much more "fair" than Minus and I should give it a shot.

Honestly... Zeus EX wasn't very well done at all IMO. After playing about half the cast I was sick of the gameplay and it just had no professional feeling to it. There are also numerous things about the characters, stages, and more that drove me away. I'm gonna take some time to describe what I find wrong with Zeus/EX. Now, I don't exactly know what was made by the original Zeus creators and what was made by the EX creators. Heck, I don't even know if they're the same people or not. So, I'm not going to put all the blame on one team or the other.

Starting with characters:

First of all, the new characters. There's lots of unnecessary characters in EX.
To start, Knuckles and Lyn? Really? Do you really want to insult PM by using their unfinished content in your mods? Leave it alone. I could say the same for Mewtwo and Roy, but I guess those two were already officially added into PM anyway.
Marisa... You do realize that the majority of Smash Bros. fans do NOT like anime characters (especially when it comes to swordfighters for some reason, but jokes aside), right? Putting in a random anime video game character pretty much just generates hate. Along with this, Touhou, I'm pretty sure that's where this character's from, is not very popular among Smash fans, which would probably cause them to just scratch their heads and say "Who?"
Little Mac. Why does he have pretty much no sounds other than hit sounds in game? It makes it kind of awkward to play with him, on top of awkward animations.

Moving on to the menus...

When you first get past the title screen, you see a new layout for the menus and think "Ooh, this'll be interesting! I'd love to see more of these menus!" But it turns out that the only menu that changed was the main menu. Kind of disappointing.
The CSS looks like a mess. The rainbow background combined with PM's just seems so odd. On the top, where it says "3-stock Smash!" by default, you can barely see "-stock Smash!" White does not combine with very dark grey. Also, the way the X is cut off on "Survival" is kind of strange. It should be sized down to fit the box, IMO.
Some of the characters need some repositioning on the CSS. For example, Kirby's portraits are WAY too small. Characters like DK, Fox and Falco should all be sized down on their selection window. The list goes on.
Some of the announcer clips are messed up too. Mewtwo has this weird sound after he is announced, Dark Pit only has some sound effect for his announcer call, and Marisa is... Mahy-uh? Maybe that's how it's supposed to be called or something, I don't do Touhou.
The stage select isn't looking any better. The icons, emblems and names all seem to be mixed up. For example, why is the stage named Kongo Jungle with a Wario Land icon and portrait? Why does Wily castle have Pit's emblem? And why does Toy Time Galaxy have Mega Man's emblem?

Now, the gameplay and SFX.

The gameplay is where it seems to be worst, honestly. Sometimes it will feel slow and Brawl-y, but then it'll feel all fast and more Melee-like! This is a really bad thing to do in any game. Also, some of the characters look very unfinished or unpolished. Just look at Toon Link. Where did all of his sword trails go? This makes alot of his moves, especially up B, very unappealing.
The in-battle SFX are just... ugh. Why are some of them so quiet? Like, I know that when a character is KO'd, the sound is there... but you can barely hear it. In Brawl, you could clearly hear an explosion, but this time, it just sounds like a quiet low-quality blast of some sort.
The battle portraits are really strange with some of these. Why does Lucina have a minus-looking portrait, and Pichu has his original Minus portrait? Shouldn't the BPs look the same as the CSPs in smash games?
A lot of the characters have really weird moves I can't wrap my head around. Some make sense, like, you know, Kirby's 64 moveset, but what's with Mario's specials, and what was wrong with the originals that made you think they needed an overhaul? Pretty much all of the new characters have this strange moveset thing about them. Except Ryu, and maybe Mac, but he gets it worse from the lack of SFX. Ryu stays true to his Smash 4 moveset for the most part. Good choice.
One last thing I want to make note of are some of the animations. Some of them are WAY too choppy. Look at the way characters grab ledges. They just kinda SNAP right on. I can't really think of any good way to describe it. Also, either the noise for ledgegrabs is either really quiet or not there at all.

Another point:

I recognize a LOT of this from Brawl Vault. A LOT. Things like PSAs, costumes, etc... I really hope you got permission to use all of these in your pack and gave credit where required.

So, in conclusion...

I think that Minus Zeus EX is not at all better than the original Minus. Sure, some may see it as a better, balanced Minus with a little dash of PM and Brawl in the mix, but I just think it's a big, messy cluster of character PSAs and Brawl Vault content mixed with some of the original content that previous Zeus versions had, and other new things that the people behind EX made for themseslves. I'm definitely not going to choose Zeus EX over Minus any time soon.

TL;DR: Minus Zeus EX is way too messy, a lot of the content is unoriginal and from Brawl Vault, and the gameplay, characters, menus, and more are too unprofessional for me to see it spread very widely.

 

[ThePoisonMirage]

You went wrong when you called this a better Minus. This game has a sort of Minus feel, while still being more fair, competitively viable and enjoyable by a lot of people. Let me depict most of your stuff down so i can explain.

I'll agree, currently, Minus..wait don't even call it Minus. Zeus EX looks horrible Cosmetics wise, i agree. That's being fixed as we speak with me and a dev team who aspire to make Zeus the best it can be. We are trying our hardest right now to fix all these errors that the porter of Zeus EX didn't want to complete, but eventually, It will all be fixed. This same thing will apply to SFX, i understand how bad this mod,cosmetic wise and sfx wise. I'm getting them fixed as i type this, even a HD version will be released, and anyways no one plays the game for all the cosmetics, the game or mod in question is played for the gameplay.

Now onto your Gameplay, Zeus is nothing like Minus assured, this is the first reason for gameplay feeling wrong too you. I personally enjoy a slow/fast-paced mix of combat. It's not Brawl slow so thats something. Changes to characters? It's the same reason why Minus changed there characters, to make them unique to Zeus whether other people like it or not. If it's not broken, your fine, some attacks could of been more thought and i agree, but it's better than playing Minus which is meant to be broken and less competitive. Characters added that you say were unnecessary: Lyn and Knuckles, some japanese pmbr members are apart of the Zeus Backroom, this is why they were put into the game, also it shouldn't matter if these two character were added because they were gonna be apart of PM anyways, people honestly need to stop whining. Marisa, Zeus BR had the guy who created Marisa, Marisa is a unique character to Zeus, just because she's Anime doesn't mean anything about how the character plays in general. Her gameplay changes up everything and to some people, they like the new change. As for other characters unique to Zeus, Dark Pit, I haven't seen him in Vault before and he is unique to Zeus. These characters were Zeusified for the fun of the game and how it was made, making the game funner and be played more was the right way to go. Sword Trails? Are you really complaining about Sword Trails? Jesus man. I've already talked about cosmetics and the like so i wont talk more than that.

In anyway you look at it, This is all opinion based. I don't like Minus because it's broken and just plain stupid, it's not meant to be a competitive game at all. Hence why they made characters broken. Zeus EX can have a competitive future, but also be fun. The people at my weekly's prefer Zeus EX to Minus by over 95%. There are 15-20 minus players at our weeklys, and i can assure you. This is true. As far as calling this Minus, it's a complete no go to me, it's almost nothing like Minus. Well, i will bid farewell.

 

[Thor]

A lot of things in this thread are things that make me react with head-shaking and disappointment, but I'll just address a few things.

The claim that the vast majority of smashers do not enjoy anime... I don't know where on earth you got the statistics for that, but plenty of them do enjoy anime, and I can't think of any that are actively opposed to it. It seems a lot more like you took personal offense to it and tried to claim everyone else did too, with no evidence whatsoever.

competitively viable

This phrase is arbitrary and often completely meaningless. If I asked you to define you'd probably circle around on it or say a bunch of vague stuff that would definitely need more explaining ("well it's fit for competition" "which means?" "it's competitively viable!" or "it's something that's good for competition!" "and who are you to be the ultimate judge on what's good or not good for competition?")

If the name of the game is moving with respect to balanced movement options and the ability to punish strong defensive options, demonstrating precision and mastery of frame trap, Brawl would be far better for competitive play than Melee or 64 or Smash 4, because no movement is generally best [walking isn't that fast but 0% trip rate, dashing incurs a trip rate and you lose access to tilts, being in the air loses the option of shielding].

If the competition wants a game where juggling is often rewarding without extreme difficulty [putting the burden of landing on the opponent], where precision of height matters, and ground moves are usually not terribly safe, but decent, with good roster balance, Smash 4 is better than Brawl or Melee, due to airdodge landing lag, airdodges having little lag otherwise and moves with solid autocancel windows, and most tilts and smashes being meh on shield.

And if the game wants to test the ability to react to where someone is and their followup ability, as well as potentially very long combos, and doesn't care as much about roster balance, Melee would be better than Brawl or Smash 4.

The thing is, people have entirely different preferences, but saying one is or isn't viable is simply grossly misuing the word [or else having no understanding of what something being viable actually means]. Because every smash game is, when you look at what the words mean, "competitively viable" if you choose to play it that way, and every smash game can also be played in ways that are degenerate and conducive perhaps to something still fun but not at all competitive [eg: 1v1s on Melee temple, it's pick Fox or lose].

And to both of you, what you like depends on what you see in a game. I personally wish some aerials had less landing lag, because if the game is as offense oriented as people suggest, moves like Captain Falcon's nair and Link's uair just seem bad [while others have a fair bit of landing lag but still seem useful, like Link's dair and Falcon's fair].

 

[Neville]

Also, the people who made this mod are JAPANESE. Touhou is much more popular in Japan than the States so it makes since that Marissa is in there.

 

[ThePoisonMirage]

A lot of things in this thread are things that make me react with head-shaking and disappointment, but I'll just address a few things.

The claim that the vast majority of smashers do not enjoy anime... I don't know where on earth you got the statistics for that, but plenty of them do enjoy anime, and I can't think of any that are actively opposed to it. It seems a lot more like you took personal offense to it and tried to claim everyone else did too, with no evidence whatsoever.



This phrase is arbitrary and often completely meaningless. If I asked you to define you'd probably circle around on it or say a bunch of vague stuff that would definitely need more explaining ("well it's fit for competition" "which means?" "it's competitively viable!" or "it's something that's good for competition!" "and who are you to be the ultimate judge on what's good or not good for competition?")

If the name of the game is moving with respect to balanced movement options and the ability to punish strong defensive options, demonstrating precision and mastery of frame trap, Brawl would be far better for competitive play than Melee or 64 or Smash 4, because no movement is generally best [walking isn't that fast but 0% trip rate, dashing incurs a trip rate and you lose access to tilts, being in the air loses the option of shielding].

If the competition wants a game where juggling is often rewarding without extreme difficulty [putting the burden of landing on the opponent], where precision of height matters, and ground moves are usually not terribly safe, but decent, with good roster balance, Smash 4 is better than Brawl or Melee, due to airdodge landing lag, airdodges having little lag otherwise and moves with solid autocancel windows, and most tilts and smashes being meh on shield.

And if the game wants to test the ability to react to where someone is and their followup ability, as well as potentially very long combos, and doesn't care as much about roster balance, Melee would be better than Brawl or Smash 4.

The thing is, people have entirely different preferences, but saying one is or isn't viable is simply grossly misuing the word [or else having no understanding of what something being viable actually means]. Because every smash game is, when you look at what the words mean, "competitively viable" if you choose to play it that way, and every smash game can also be played in ways that are degenerate and conducive perhaps to something still fun but not at all competitive [eg: 1v1s on Melee temple, it's pick Fox or lose].

And to both of you, what you like depends on what you see in a game. I personally wish some aerials had less landing lag, because if the game is as offense oriented as people suggest, moves like Captain Falcon's nair and Link's uair just seem bad [while others have a fair bit of landing lag but still seem useful, like Link's dair and Falcon's fair].

I understand 100% on what you have said. I did not express that, in my ignorance I said that one game was more competitively viable than the other without proper evidence or my opinion factoring into it. At my weeklys, people like Zeus EX more than Minus because it's not crazy and combos are more satisfying in Zeus EX than in Zeus, as said by other people not just me. Even a TO for Minus at our weeklys has switched to Zeus... If that isn't evidence then I don't know what is. As far as my opinion, I personally think that Zeus EX is more viable than Minus, because it's fun, and it doesn't have the exact craziness as Minus does, too me that gives a reason to why people didn't like it at our weeklys, many people at my weeklys complained about Minus being a too broken and crazy. When I showed up with Zeus EX, people just enjoyed playing it and people wanted to see a competitive scene for it,so I am trying to. As far as your own look at landing lag and such, I'm currently fixing that right now, I also thought the exact same thing, there's a bit too much lag FOr certain moves on almost all characters,thats why I'm trying to fix that.

 

[Darxmarx]

I'd probably say that my biggest issue with Zeus is the cosmetics (CSS and the like), but even if they looked fantastic by default I'd still be replacing them with other things anyway.

As for other characters unique to Zeus, Dark Pit, I haven't seen him in Vault before and he is unique to Zeus. These characters were Zeusified for the fun of the game and how it was made, making the game funner and be played more was the right way to go.

Minor tidbit, but the Dark Pit PSA is in the vault, as it comes from the Flame Orbitars Pit PSA. Besides the removal of spotdodging to fit in with the rest of the Zeus cast, I am not sure if any other changes were made.

 

[ThePoisonMirage]

I'd probably say that my biggest issue with Zeus is the cosmetics (CSS and the like), but even if they looked fantastic by default I'd still be replacing them with other things anyway.

Minor tidbit, but the Dark Pit PSA is in the vault, as it comes from the Flame Orbitars Pit PSA. Besides the removal of spotdodging to fit in with the rest of the Zeus cast, I am not sure if any other changes were made.

Thanks, I didn't know this. I'll check it out.

 

[Neville]

I haven't played Zeus in a while and I don't have access to a wii, but if Zues is as cluncky as I remember it, it's still a pretty huge turn-off.

 

[Turk Injaydii]

A lot of what has been said here by ThePoisonMirage and bandeaux is completely opinion based. And Thor did a fantastic job of explaining that in regards to views on what is considered "competitively viable." [fuck Brawl though, hope it stays dead, lol]

I'm who Mirage is referring to when he says a TO has dropped Minus for Zeus. Minus has great things about it, but there's just too much jank for our folks to get into it competitively. Completely spammable and some times OP projectiles, characters that can use their side-b's infinitely in the air, combos such as Bowser RR d-throw, to aerial side-special, to f-smash that are impossible to avoid with optimal DI, throws that meteor, [though you can mash once your buried by side-special if you're at lower percents], stages with stupid small blast zones [one of the minor issues], and just in general the presence of absurd moves that COMPLETELY break the limits of what our scene considers acceptable in a competitive fighter [Olimar white Pikmin, Lucario stupidity out of up and side specials, Falco laser walls, Ganon having 4 kill throws, and the list goes on].

Additionally, I have seen Minus devs say multiple times that they're focus is on silly. And I've heard from multiple people that ex-devs that tried to make the game more serious were basically ignored and driven away from Minus development [whether it be though banning, or resigning out of frustration]. So, the chances of the absurdity ever leaving are VERY bleak. That coupled with what I explained in the above paragraph is why I've quit advocating for the game and why our scene dropped it. Once we tried to make it competitive, we saw that no players HONESTLY thought it could be taken seriously as a competitive title. Just too much jank. However, if you like the game, I applaud you or spreading it and I hope you keep having fun. Our scene just won't have anything to do with it anymore.

Zeus, while it may not be as polished as PM or Minus, is a great game that I have loads of fun with. I have tons of complaints about some of the cosmetics [ugly ass CSS, I'm super salty that Little Mac looks and sounds like shit, etc]. But Mirage and his team are cleaning much of the cosmetic issues up. The most notable change is they've actually given the game a great stage selection. [the regular download just has a bunch of For Glory stages, lol]

Anyway, I'm excited to see where Zeus goes in our community. I love it, the players instantly fell in love and opted to drop Minus, and Mirage and his team are making it better. So we'll see what happens!

#ByeMinusHelloZeus

 

[Destructo]

Something something Zeus is better than Minus

Something something opinions

Something something CSS is fuckin unacceptable

Something something Zeus is a much smaller mod yet has a more interactive relationship with it's fans than Minus

Something something put my Custom Falcon Skin in as an alt and subrib to mai mincteft lets plat chanel

 

[Thor]

After reading this and watching some stuff, I'm curious if maybe Minus might ultimately fail as a singles event, but perhaps see success in doubles... a lot of the stuff you said you don't like is not nearly as effective in doubles, but you still have access to the craziness and can make truly absurd team combos I'm sure.

 

[Doqtor Kirby]

Smash Bros. fans do NOT like anime characters

Putting in a random anime video game character pretty much just generates hate.

random anime video game character

just because she's Anime

the vast majority of smashers do not enjoy anime

Ｉ ｃａｍｅ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ｂａｃｋｒｏｏｍ ｂｅｃａｕｓｅ ｙｏｕ ｎｅｅｄ ｔｏ ｓｔｏｐ．

 

[ThePoisonMirage]

After reading this and watching some stuff, I'm curious if maybe Minus might ultimately fail as a singles event, but perhaps see success in doubles... a lot of the stuff you said you don't like is not nearly as effective in doubles, but you still have access to the craziness and can make truly absurd team combos I'm sure.

I feel Doubles might not be that bad, but I personally don't like Doubles, mainly because I have no one to play with but hey lol

 

[Turk Injaydii]

After reading this and watching some stuff, I'm curious if maybe Minus might ultimately fail as a singles event, but perhaps see success in doubles... a lot of the stuff you said you don't like is not nearly as effective in doubles, but you still have access to the craziness and can make truly absurd team combos I'm sure.

If the devs prioritize silly (and arguably stupid, lol) over competitive viability, the game was never meant to succeed as a competitive event. And doubles has always been in the shadow of singles. Minus will never have a competitive scene comparable to even a respectable fraction of what PM has. And its all because the devs prioritize the wrong things in the eyes of competitive players.

 

[Pin Clock]

Just because we see certain things as fine and acceptable when some players don't does not mean we don't focus on competitive. Play 2.x.6 and then come back to 4.0b and tell me the game has not gotten more balanced and competitive over the years.

 

[Turk Injaydii]

Just because we see certain things as fine and acceptable when some players don't does not mean we don't focus on competitive. Play 2.x.6 and then come back to 4.0b and tell me the game has not gotten more balanced and competitive over the years.

I would make an effort to explain why many things in Minus are not ok for a competitive title, but I've seen enough posts and talked to enough people to know that is a pointless venture. And i know my opinions are those of many through talking with Middle TN players...so I'll simply say this:

I have no doubt the game has made vast improvements. And by viewing it as a non-competitive title, I don't mean its bad. If you all wanted to make a super fun and silly version of Smash, that has been done and your team is a success!

But its not a good title for the competitive scene. Not in my eyes anymore, at least. Too much jank has been discovered after trying to actually build a competitive scene... Also, after seeing our a player base develop interest in Minus (but not as playing it seriously on the competitive level), then unanimously decide to drop it for Zeus after one afternoon of playing AND express a desire to see Zeus grow competitively... that's a red flag. Minus is fun, but it has no place being played competitively. [not in Middle TN, at least]

 

[Thor]

Ｉ ｃａｍｅ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ｂａｃｋｒｏｏｍ ｂｅｃａｕｓｅ ｙｏｕ ｎｅｅｄ ｔｏ ｓｔｏｐ．

Your quote of me was ripped 100% out of context. I can't tell if you're memeing, sarcastic, or... well, worse things.

 

[Neville]

Your quote of me was ripped 100% out of context. I can't tell if you're memeing, sarcastic, or... well, worse things.

Retarded. That's what you were thinking right?

 

[Thor]

Retarded. That's what you were thinking right?

I was going to say "completely stupid" or "a moron", but that works too.

 

[LolBrawl]

It seems like the developers are getting so much hate for brawl minus being silly. Come on, it's the actual goal of the project.

 

[ThePoisonMirage]

It seems like the developers are getting so much hate for brawl minus being silly. Come on, it's the actual goal of the project.

The devs are getting no hate, and we know the objective of Minus. We in TN tried starting a competitive scene, but it just brought people who didn't like the real jankness of Minus, it's not meant to be a competitive game, though it has took strides in doing so, but that defeats the purpose of breaking the limits.

 

[Doqtor Kirby]

Your quote of me was ripped 100% out of context. I can't tell if you're memeing, sarcastic, or... well, worse things.

I was literally just quoting every line with the word "anime" in it.

Because

Spoiler: goddamnit

 

[Neville]

I was literally just quoting every line with the word "anime" in it.

Because

Spoiler: goddamnit

But are touhou fighting games "anime fighters"?

 

[AGentleStar]

Tl;dr at the bottom paragraph

Wow. I couldn't bring myself to read all of the salty comments. I came into Zeus expecting neither an upgrade or downgrade. I think both could have been fine in their own right. I think both have the potential to be competitive. But a few things need to be made clear. Brawl Zeus, whether you like it or not, is in a sort of "uncanny valley" in terms of how finished it is. For some characters, I feel the changes made to them feel unique and have a great combination of PM mechanics and Minus unpredictability. Examples of this would be Mario, Yoshi, Peach, and Bowser. Some characters have few differences that can be considered new. Examples are Wario, Luigi, and Donkey Kong.

Then on the other side of the spectrum, there are the characters that seem finished, but lack tangible attacks that don't flow well together. Ex: Waluigi, Little Mac (does it always have to follow rule-of-three?). Finally, there are the characters that, to be blunt, have poorly constructed and poorly optimized move pools that range from either ineffective, to downright cheap. Ex: Ryu, Dark Pit, Pichu, Ness, Lucina.

The people in this thread have referenced ho Brawl Minus has too much silliness to have a viable competitive scene. For starters......no. Look, I've played a lot of mods. There was one custom mod called Project Omega. It was a collection of ultra powered characters with new stages, music, etc. The problems with it had to do with character balancing. A fourth of the cast was unchanged from Brawl Minus. Some characters were only changed to have infinite everything. MK could instantly cancel d-tilt into another d-tilt for rapid poking action! That was assuming you didn't just use a smash attack, some of which kill at 0%, making his other moves pointless. Then you have characters that are beyond SSS tier. There are about six or so characters that can not only cancel everything, but can move, attack and defend extremely quickly, jump forever (instead of ten times), have several screen nukes, unfair hitbox range, taunts that healed, you get the point. Brawl Minus is actually very balanced. I realize that there are some characters that struggle against others, but whatever one character can do, there is another one that can counter it.

There has also been talk of how Zeus aims to be a more competitive version of Minus. I don't doubt that! I don't have a problem with that goal. I would like to play Zeus as well as Minus. But the thing that holding it back, and you're going to disagree, is its image. Zeus attempts to take preexisting PSAs and Movesets and put it into their mod as their own. Some characters are changed slightly from someone else's so that it keeps them from looking like they just stole a character. Many of the sounds in the game aren't audible or are in places where they shouldn't be (Mewtwo CSS). Some stages make the framerate drop significantly and make the game feel choppier as a result. I showed this game to my older brother and we played Wily Castle. That level had rendering issues to the point where the fire effects on Roy's sword were gone and left nothing but a white plane. One match had my brother and I play MK (me) and Ryu (bro). He noticed he could just spam hadouken and it would be nearly impossible to counter. It couldn't be reflected back, it had a lot of knockback, and the transition from one hadouken to the next was quick and lagless. My brother became really bored because of how pointlessly easy Ryu was. All of these things make Zeus hard to approach. The shady practices, the inconsistent quality control, this is why Zeus isn't talked about as much. It's similar to another Brawl mod I played called Brawl Infinite. It had 100+ characters, dozens of stages, music and so on. But the brawl characters were unchanged, the new characters were either "stolen" or poorly made, and had issues up the ass. I tried playing it with my sister and she got bored really fast.

Zeus is trying to be a lot of things. It has sound effects reminiscent of Melee, mechanics like power shield reflecting, beloved stages made by other modders, and sometimes clever re-imagining of Minus and PM movesets. It cannot seem to find a particular need to satiate. Is it competitive? Yes. Is it silly? Sometimes. Is it a collection of mods with an added developers' creative twist? Occasionally. They may claim to have a goal, but the mod doesn't accurately show it. They want to show off what they have, but only a quarter is truly finished and another quarter is in a beta phase. It should have done what the Project M Dev Team did: develop a small cast first and then add on newer characters when the older ones are playable. Wario isn't very interesting in his "beta" stage and could have more work done on him, but the Zeus dev team feel they need to show off little mac instead even though he feels barely finished. This kinda problem also occurs in the PMCC "dev team" where they put Isaac and Sami in, but they are sooooo unfinished. They don't bother to fix them. They only focused on Knuckles and Lyn and then Isaac and Sami. They released Isaac when he wasn't even finished and instead of working on him, they put in another unfinished character. If a character isn't in a presentable beta, don't release it! Otherwise, you'll have Isaac who can die instantly with up-special, Sami who shits grenades, and character models that stretch across the entire screen, requiring one to exit the match. [links to Github pages discussing these issues are at the bottom of the page]

Zeus isn't perfect, but I know it can be better. If this game was only based on the really well made characters and the others would be added on later, I wouldn't have such an issue. However, it is also the image Zeus has that holds it back. So to conclude: a tl;dr.



Tl;dr As it stands currently, Minus is better made than Zeus. It has more potential to be competitive because of it's quality control and it doesn't rely on other peoples mods, but Zeus can do better if it works with what succeeds. When someone or some group I admire messes up, I want to help them know how to get better. But in some cases, I have to be blunt. And in those same cases, you can have people who praise their work as their magnum opus and act volatile towards harsh criticism (Sounds kinda like Melee, doesn't it?). I mean, I could have been truly honest and said that playing a couple hours of this game made me want to vomit and had to force myself to stop. Though that could have possibly been a lack of sleep. I hope that both the Zeus team and Minus team understand where I'm coming from, learn from their mistakes, and stop bickering like a bunch of fucking kids. None of this "#ByeMinusHelloZeus" trolling bullshit.

Thanks for understanding,
--AGentleStar

References:
Sami Up-b forever: https://github.com/Project-M-CC/Project-M-CC/issues/318
Isaac up-b issues: https://github.com/Project-M-CC/Project-M-CC/issues/1
Isaac's shadow in flat zone: https://github.com/Project-M-CC/Project-M-CC/issues/339
Isaac Pivot grab: https://github.com/Project-M-CC/Project-M-CC/issues/128
Completing Sami: https://github.com/Project-M-CC/Project-M-CC/issues/112

 

[Neville]

Tl;dr at the bottom paragraph

Wow. I couldn't bring myself to read all of the salty comments. I came into Zeus expecting neither an upgrade or downgrade. I think both could have been fine in their own right. I think both have the potential to be competitive. But a few things need to be made clear. Brawl Zeus, whether you like it or not, is in a sort of "uncanny valley" in terms of how finished it is. For some characters, I feel the changes made to them feel unique and have a great combination of PM mechanics and Minus unpredictability. Examples of this would be Mario, Yoshi, Peach, and Bowser. Some characters have few differences that can be considered new. Examples are Wario, Luigi, and Donkey Kong.

Then on the other side of the spectrum, there are the characters that seem finished, but lack tangible attacks that don't flow well together. Ex: Waluigi, Little Mac (does it always have to follow rule-of-three?). Finally, there are the characters that, to be blunt, have poorly constructed and poorly optimized move pools that range from either ineffective, to downright cheap. Ex: Ryu, Dark Pit, Pichu, Ness, Lucina.

The people in this thread have referenced ho Brawl Minus has too much silliness to have a viable competitive scene. For starters......no. Look, I've played a lot of mods. There was one custom mod called Project Omega. It was a collection of ultra powered characters with new stages, music, etc. The problems with it had to do with character balancing. A fourth of the cast was unchanged from Brawl Minus. Some characters were only changed to have infinite everything. MK could instantly cancel d-tilt into another d-tilt for rapid poking action! That was assuming you didn't just use a smash attack, some of which kill at 0%, making his other moves pointless. Then you have characters that are beyond SSS tier. There are about six or so characters that can not only cancel everything, but can move, attack and defend extremely quickly, jump forever (instead of ten times), have several screen nukes, unfair hitbox range, taunts that healed, you get the point. Brawl Minus is actually very balanced. I realize that there are some characters that struggle against others, but whatever one character can do, there is another one that can counter it.

There has also been talk of how Zeus aims to be a more competitive version of Minus. I don't doubt that! I don't have a problem with that goal. I would like to play Zeus as well as Minus. But the thing that holding it back, and you're going to disagree, is its image. Zeus attempts to take preexisting PSAs and Movesets and put it into their mod as their own. Some characters are changed slightly from someone else's so that it keeps them from looking like they just stole a character. Many of the sounds in the game aren't audible or are in places where they shouldn't be (Mewtwo CSS). Some stages make the framerate drop significantly and make the game feel choppier as a result. I showed this game to my older brother and we played Wily Castle. That level had rendering issues to the point where the fire effects on Roy's sword were gone and left nothing but a white plane. One match had my brother and I play MK (me) and Ryu (bro). He noticed he could just spam hadouken and it would be nearly impossible to counter. It couldn't be reflected back, it had a lot of knockback, and the transition from one hadouken to the next was quick and lagless. My brother became really bored because of how pointlessly easy Ryu was. All of these things make Zeus hard to approach. The shady practices, the inconsistent quality control, this is why Zeus isn't talked about as much. It's similar to another Brawl mod I played called Brawl Infinite. It had 100+ characters, dozens of stages, music and so on. But the brawl characters were unchanged, the new characters were either "stolen" or poorly made, and had issues up the ass. I tried playing it with my sister and she got bored really fast.

Zeus is trying to be a lot of things. It has sound effects reminiscent of Melee, mechanics like power shield reflecting, beloved stages made by other modders, and sometimes clever re-imagining of Minus and PM movesets. It cannot seem to find a particular need to satiate. Is it competitive? Yes. Is it silly? Sometimes. Is it a collection of mods with an added developers' creative twist? Occasionally. They may claim to have a goal, but the mod doesn't accurately show it. They want to show off what they have, but only a quarter is truly finished and another quarter is in a beta phase. It should have done what the Project M Dev Team did: develop a small cast first and then add on newer characters when the older ones are playable. Wario isn't very interesting in his "beta" stage and could have more work done on him, but the Zeus dev team feel they need to show off little mac instead even though he feels barely finished. This kinda problem also occurs in the PMCC "dev team" where they put Isaac and Sami in, but they are sooooo unfinished. They don't bother to fix them. They only focused on Knuckles and Lyn and then Isaac and Sami. They released Isaac when he wasn't even finished and instead of working on him, they put in another unfinished character. If a character isn't in a presentable beta, don't release it! Otherwise, you'll have Isaac who can die instantly with up-special, Sami who shits grenades, and character models that stretch across the entire screen, requiring one to exit the match. [links to Github pages discussing these issues are at the bottom of the page]

Zeus isn't perfect, but I know it can be better. If this game was only based on the really well made characters and the others would be added on later, I wouldn't have such an issue. However, it is also the image Zeus has that holds it back. So to conclude: a tl;dr.



Tl;dr As it stands currently, Minus is better made than Zeus. It has more potential to be competitive because of it's quality control and it doesn't rely on other peoples mods, but Zeus can do better if it works with what succeeds. When someone or some group I admire messes up, I want to help them know how to get better. But in some cases, I have to be blunt. And in those same cases, you can have people who praise their work as their magnum opus and act volatile towards harsh criticism (Sounds kinda like Melee, doesn't it?). I mean, I could have been truly honest and said that playing a couple hours of this game made me want to vomit and had to force myself to stop. Though that could have possibly been a lack of sleep. I hope that both the Zeus team and Minus team understand where I'm coming from, learn from their mistakes, and stop bickering like a bunch of fucking kids. None of this "#ByeMinusHelloZeus" trolling bullshit.

Thanks for understanding,
--AGentleStar

References:
Sami Up-b forever: https://github.com/Project-M-CC/Project-M-CC/issues/318
Isaac up-b issues: https://github.com/Project-M-CC/Project-M-CC/issues/1
Isaac's shadow in flat zone: https://github.com/Project-M-CC/Project-M-CC/issues/339
Isaac Pivot grab: https://github.com/Project-M-CC/Project-M-CC/issues/128
Completing Sami: https://github.com/Project-M-CC/Project-M-CC/issues/112

Your tldr is pretty much why I don't like Zeus.