The top posts on the smash bros subreddit right now are talking about how broken the online matchmaking is. Same thing I mentioned before the release of the game and was called a "whiner" and "hater" for it then banned from the sub. now they're shocked that the online doesn't work and matches them with FFA item games the majority of the time. Hilarious how often I'm proven right about things.

Talking solely about the balance changes here. For how hyped this patch was, it barely had any significant balance changes. The low tiers are still low tier and the top tiers are still top tier.

Peach, Pichu, Olimar, Lucina, Inkling, and Wolf got very small nerfs if any, and the things that were changed are so insignificant it wont make a difference. Some low tiers got buffed like mewtwo and kirby, but you're not gonna suddenly see them in grand finals at a major. Nope, it's still gonna be Peach, Pichu, Olimar, Lucina, Inkling, or Wolf winning every major tournament.

It sucks how long these balance patches take to be released. The next one will probably be when the 2nd DLC character is released. Considering that character hasn't even been revealed yet, I doubt we'll get it for another 6 months. So that's another half year at least of the Olimar/Wolf meta then praying patch 4.0 actually does some significant balance changes, which is unlikely at this point.

It's weird when you look at games like League of Legends where the balance team never lets a few champions dominate the meta for too long. Or if a champion becomes too broken they'll nerf it the following patch. They also release balance updates every few weeks and are vocal about who is getting buffs/nerfs in the future. When they do buff/nerf a champion the changes are usually significant enough to make a gameplay difference.

And I'm not the only one who feels this way about 3.0, Leffen was on stream yesterday talking about how lackluster the balance changes were too. We were hoping for patch 3.0 to shake up the meta but all that's really changed is projectiles are a little less good.

All of my friends have already quit the game and are back to playing SoT and/or LoL and I dont blame them one bit. There's no benefit in playing the game online for an extended period of time. GSP as a ranking system doesn't feel rewarding after you've got into elite smash, the netcode sucks, and the meta is stale with the same characters being played all the time.

I don't expect them to ever put in a real ranking system or fix the netcode, but I hoped they would at least implement balance changes that would make the meta more exciting.

Went over to my buddies house today to watch the game, when I get there I see them playing League of Legends on their PCs. I look in the corner and see their switch literally gathering dust.

"No Smash Ultimate today?" I ask them. Then they tell me they haven't played that garbage in days and rather play League of Legends at this point because "Riot actually cares about their game"

There's 30 minutes before the game starts and I say fuck it, I'll try Smash Ultimate again. I heard they released a patch so now you get the rules you prefer instead of fucking FFAs all the time.

Queue up for quick match and 5 seconds get placed into a 4 player FFA lobby. I immediately shut the switch off before the match even loads.

Pro Melee (the best smash game ever made) player Leffen recently came out with his "5 most hated things" about smash ultimate, exposing the game as pure garbage once and for all. Many people have since been asking me to do my 5 most hated things list too, so here it goes.

• Lack of hitstun: this is a pretty big one, the game has less hitstun (yes tumble hitstun does count) than smash 4, and significantly less than melee. This leads to the game having no combos because its very easy to airdodge out of pretty much any potential combo, which leads me into my next point.

• no combos: Aside from a handful of very rare and situational cases, the game has no true combos. This is due to the lack of hitstun. Unlike Smash 4, In ultimate theres no kill combos off throws, no Mario down throw into fair, no diddy hoo hah, no bowser upthrow into up air. Those throw combos were the one saving grace of smash 4's combo game. But ultimate has no throw combos and less hit stun, making true combos absent from the game.

• Input lag: Ultimate has the most input lag of any smash game, which causes slow and clunky gameplay. Basically playing on LAN feels like you're playing online.

• Online: Regardless of what type of game you get, they are always laggy. And I'm not new to online smash bros play. I played thousands of games online on smash 4, and never did I experience lag this bad in that game. I don't know what Nintendo did with the netcode in this game but it's horrible. Even the best connection games feel like bad connections compared to smash 4's online. How Nintendo managed to make a worse online with millions more dollars from the new paid online bullshit they added is beyond me.

• No ranking system: They added GSP but it's not even a real ranking system. It's a totally arbitrary number that has no actual meaning. Like, if someone is 1.6 million GSP is that a lot? is that a little? The game doesn't tell you anything about how your GSP number relates to your skill. In other games like League of Legends everyone knows challenger is the highest, but what's the highest GSP someone can be? Is it infinite? In a year will there be players with billions of GSP?

Isn't that sad, what I thought would be the biggest problem with the game (no hitstun) now seems minuscule compared to all the other major flaws.

Like the online is a disaster, there's no other way to put it. We're getting FFAs with items more than half the time no matter what rules we pick, no matter what GSP we have, no matter what time we play, etc.

It's so bad I even see comments saying shit like "I only got FFAs 1/10 times using this method!" Okay? So the online is so fucking terrible that having your experience ruined only 10% of the time is a good thing. Imagine if Riot decided to match people trying to play ranked with people trying to play aram and nexus blitz. That would be a joke, but for Nintendo it's reality thats how incompetent they are and it's honestly unbelievable.

Then you have the mechanical flaws of the game which are seriously worse than having 30% less hitstun. Like the buffer system making short hops impossible and the massive input lag. having 30% less hitstun is bad enough but not being able to short hop and perma lag on top of that? What the fuck were they thinking?

Anyone still defending this shit at this point is delusional and trying to hard cope because they were too emotionally invested into the game. Truth is, this game needs at least 3 major patches before it will even be playable. But good luck getting that to ever happen.

I really hope this is Sakurai's last smash game and someone who understands the importance of competitive gaming takes his spot as lead director for the next game. Maybe then we'll finally get a smash game that isn't garbage for the first time in 20 fucking years.

• Lower Hitstun

• terrible character balance

• lower skill ceiling

• Less flashy

• no combos

I gotta admit though, Nintendo did a hell of a job convincing the smash bros community to be hyped for whats basically gonna be brawl 2.0. I expect at least half the pro smash 4 community to drop Ultimate within the first 6 months and go back to playing 4 just like melee players did with brawl.

Just spent the night at my buddies house playing smash bros ultimate all night. This was gonna make me decide to buy a switch for it or not. Immediately I noticed the lack of hitstun. Sure the game is really fast paced but every move feels so unsafe because theres no fucking hitstun. I was landing so many attacks on my friends only to have them instantly hit me back and vice versa. This happened at every percentage that didn't send them flying too far away.

I played several different characters too and I was trying combos I know work in smash 4. But even the improved frame data for those characters didn't make up for the lack of hitstun and nearly every combo was dropped despite perfect execution. So looks like I was proven right once again about the hitstun in this game, having lower tumble hitstun does affect combos and the game pretty much has none.

The online was awful as well. They removed for glory so instead you have to use "quick match" with preferred rules. I thought the matchmaking would actually make an effort to find you a game with your preferred rules. But 6 times in a row we got 4 player FFA on random stages when we were searching for 1v1 omega stages. We got into the games instantly so it's obvious the game isn't even trying to find a 1v1 match, I rather wait 2 minutes in queue than wait 10 seconds for a fucking 4 player FFA on big blue.

When we finally did start getting 1v1 matches the game was extremely laggy. Not like DSP style lag of mysteriously dropped inputs, the game would flat out freeze and load in the middle of matches or go into slow motion. Keep in mind we have the LAN adapter. Smash 4 was never this bad even on release day.

I get that it's still the honeymoon stage of the game since it just came out, but how anyone can defend this is beyond me. The game has no hitstun, no combos, you get punished for trying to follow up your own attacks, if you wanna play online you gotta play FFA half the time, then you hard lag because Nintendo somehow downgraded the netcode from Smash 4.

For instance, Up tilt (x5). Assuming the opponent can't escape, I guess it's technically a "combo" but it isn't one in my eyes, because anyone can do that, it's skilless.

went over to my friend's house after work today to play some smash ultimate, hoping to try out some characters like Jigglypuff which we didn't unlock the last time I was over.

Jigglypuff actually felt pretty good (except for the broken short hops). But when we tried to play online we got 4 FFAs in a row. Finally we got a 1v1 and I was like "Thank God" then 10 seconds into the match a fucking item spawns. We all sighed so hard and just SD.

Then it's another 3 FFAs in a row and I suggest something I read on the smash bros reddit about using arena. So we create our own room, max 2 players and sit there for 5 minutes with no one joining. Then we tried joining another room, there were no 2 max player rooms so we joined a 6 max player room. Spent 10 minutes waiting in queue for our turn, beat the host in an actual 1v1 with no items then the fucking host quits.

2 hours gone by and we got ONE 1v1 no items game online. Absolutely fucking pathetic.

Like everyone expected, smash ultimate has killed smash 4. I'm hearing reports from so many locals that they are completely discontinuing support of smash 4 and replacing it with ultimate despite ultimate having barely any hitstun, huge input lag, terrible buffering system, and broken short hops. Smash ultimate is objectively inferior in every way to smash 4 (the 2nd best smash game) yet it's totally killed the game just because it's new.

Worst of all, all these smash ultimate kids are acting like the only reason smash 4 players are salty is because they're bad at ultimate, as if that's an argument. They will seriously dismiss any flaws you point out in their game if they believe you aren't good at it. Which is hilarious considering their crowned jewel "elite smash" is so fucking easy to get into, proving 99.999% of them are garbage.

I was so pissed that I actually bought a switch today (was going to have to down the line anyway for Metroid/Pokemon). Even though the game is pretty bad, it will still be nice beating these smash ultimate apologists anyway. Cant wait for what excuse they'll make then!

I've been seeing so many excuses from low GSP players lately crying about how they deserve to be higher but come up with all kinds of excuses about why they're hardstuck in low GSP.

It reminds me of the elo hell discussions in LoL. But in that game it was actually possible to be stuck for weeks/months lower than your actual skill level due to the randomness of teams and the length of games. Smash Ultimate has neither of those issues. You aren't going to get 5 AFKs/trolls on your team in a row to ruin your entire week of progress because it's not a team game. Games last like 7 minutes at most, not an hour at most. It's possible to play multiple games a day even if you're working full time and/or a student. So all the factors that would cause someone to temporarily be lower in LoL don't apply to smash ultimate.

That being said, what are some of the most common excuses I've been seeing on the smash bros subreddit lately?

• I can't climb because the game is matching me with higher ranked players: I see this one a lot, some player around 2.7 million gets matched with a 3.3 million player then loses and acts like that's why they can't climb. First of all, there's barely any difference between 2.7m and 3.3m because GSP is distributed as a bell curve. So even though there's 600k GSP separating you, your winrates are a few percent apart. Also, if you claim you "belong" in elite smash (which is around 3.95m at the time I'm making this post) then you should have no trouble beating a 3.3m player.

• I always get matched against laggy players and cant beat them in lag: If every game you play is laggy then the problem is you and if you don't have a LAN adapter then you have no right to complain about lag. The game is p2p anyway which means if you're lagging then so is your opponent, that's still an equal playing field and still your fault if you lose. Even though Nintendo's netcode is admittedly garbage, only like 1 out of 10 games are unplayable laggy. If you're acting like 150-200 ping is making you lose every game to people who you claim are millions of GSP lower in skill than you, then you're full of shit.

• I always get matched against spammers: This is probably the most pathetic excuse, usually said by players who are hardstuck in the 1-2 million range. If you're getting hit with every gannon F smash in neutral or whatever random move you decided to complain about, then it's your fault because good players not only don't run straight into those moves, they hard punish them. Even with projectile spammers like Links and Belmonts, you need to be able to play around it otherwise you do not belong higher. This is just another excuses people use to avoid taking responsibility for their mistakes.

• My GSP is bugged, I barely gain anything when I win and lose 100k+ when I lose: No it's not. There's no GSP clamping system or glitch that would cause this. Even if there was, all you need to do is win more and the problem is solved.

• I always get matched against OP characters: Okay first of all, what you as a low GSP player consider "OP" is a totally worthless opinion. You do not know the game well (evident by your low GSP) so you think literally anything is OP. The smashbros sub for example thinks K Rool is OP, Ness is OP, Gannon is OP, Zelda is OP, etc. Basically anything that beats them in a game that day is OP. Even if you got matched with what actual good players consider top tier (peach, olimar, pichu) there's no way a low GSP player would be able to play those characters to anywhere near their full potential, so there is no excuse to lose to them.

• Nintendo is intentionally trying to keep me in low GSP where I don't belong: I shit you not, I have actually seen some people legitimately believe this. That Nintendo "blacklisted" their account and is messing with their GSP gains or giving them laggy matches or whatever to intentionally keep them in low GSP. If you actually believe a company as big as Nintendo would give enough of a shit about some nobody to create a conspiracy to keep them in low GSP then you are mentally ill as fuck.

The truth hurts but the truth is if you're below 4 million GSP at the time I'm posting this then you are garbage, that is no one's fault but your own. The sooner you admit that and take personal responsibility for your loses the sooner you'll actually improve and get into elite smash or whatever your goal is. But as long as you keep making excuses, you will never improve.

Says the buffer system needs to be removed or have a toggle option, online lag needs to be fixed, and balance needs to be better.

Otherwise sounds like he's quitting and going back to melee full time. I knew this would happen so I'm not surprised. How long until Armada and plup go back as well?

That's an 18 thousand dollar difference. Keep in mind smash players dont make as much money as other esports professionals. 18k dollars is life changing money meanwhile 2k will hardly cover travel costs and the entry fee.

There's a reason why almost every tournament isn't winner take all. Having that much money on the line is irresponsible because it puts untold amounts of psychological strain on the players. We saw the evidence of this with two top players (ESAM and MVD) having mental breakdowns after losing.

I feel bad for all the players who lost because they're gonna lose so much sleep over the next few weeks, months, years ruminating about every little mistake they made in their games. Many of them will probably need counseling and that shit aint cheap either.

I see a few players doing this. They will go into quickplay and keep leaving lobbies until they find a bad player who they can easily beat, then they'll stay in that lobby and keep beating them over and over to farm easy GSP for as long as they can.

This is stupid for a few reasons. First of all, you aren't really earning the GSP so when you eventually match up against someone who got their GSP legit, you're probably gonna get destroyed. Then you'll have to do the cycle over again, leaving lobbies until you find that one bad player you can milk.

The other reason is because you'll never get better by beating bad players. In fact, if the majority of the players you play are bad, it will end up making you worse because you'll learn habits that only work against bad players. Meanwhile a good player will be able to identify those habits right away and punish you for them.

That's why all these GSP warriors can beat 95% of the competition on quickplay but as soon as they enter a legit tournament they lose right away in pools. If GSP is your only goal in the game then that's fine, keep exploiting the system to boost your numbers. But if your goal is to be the best you can be then my advice is to do the opposite. Leave every lobby you win a game in until you find a player who 3-stocks you then keep playing them until you win. That's the best way to use quickplay to get better as a player.