I'm not here to argue. I just want you to explain, in detail, if you prefer v0.9b, why.

Please be professional in your response and refrain from taking cheap or petty potshots at the expense of Beta or its fans; not only are those just easy to make, but they hurt your argument and make you more difficult to take seriously.

I must also ask the reverse of Beta fans and developers towards v0.9b and its fans. This means no "because they can't accept change" and the like. I want a meaningful discussion to happen here.


You see, I'm a little confused. Back during the v0.9b days, especially during its later life, I heard complaints nonstop. Specific complaints. "Jank" was a word that I saw used on a literal daily basis. And yet, ever since Beta's release, I've heard people clamoring to return to it, to the point where there's a petition with (as of this writing) 102 signatures to bring v0.9b's servers back online. At initial release, I could understand it somewhat, but it continues even today, after chief complaints such as the might of projectiles, globally low KO power, and Lloyd's lagging have all been addressed in subsequent patches.

Simply put, what's not being done right now that was being done right back then?

Forgive the double-post, but I think it's only fitting to include the arguments I've heard from asking around on Discord for the sake of completeness.

Disclaimer: These do not necessarily reflect my own opinion. These are from different users, not all of which go to the forums.

• The impact of port priority on matches in Beta is too large. While still present in v0.9b, it was not as much of a deciding factor as it is now.
• The metagame is currently very focused around grabbing, which slows the pace of the game to a halt.
• Characters in Beta generally have a limited number of viable strategies. In contrast, characters in v0.9b could have noticeably very different playstyles depending on who was playing them.
• The balancing is poor, with Tails in particular being a significant issue. In contrast, even the lower-tiered characters in v0.9b had possible broken strategies. (This one was also used as a criticism of v0.9b in the same breath.)
• Movement and inputs in general feel less responsive and satisfying, with the new buffering system responsible.

I have a few questions because I'm a newbie.


Could someone explain what port priority is and how it works?


Why is the metagame currently very focused around grabbing?


Could someone explain what the new buffering system is and how it works?

Think Smash 4: that has a lot of grabbing.

coming back temporarily because this thread is cool and I made a few of the arguments Harr listed

Port priority is where if two attacks collide, player one's attack hits player two and player two's attack doesn't hit player one.

Grabbing is simply the optimal option for most characters in most situations. Grabs have much more impact here as they did in 9b, often having enough range to be a neutral option and having either enough followup options or simply one powerful followup option in particular, encouraging players to use them. Grabs are probably a good thing in moderation (although in my opinion, they're inherently flawed) for the meta, but they're not used in moderation in Beta's meta.

One of the most common complaints and my own personal biggest complaint about the buffering system is that it prioritizes attacks higher than movement. A few examples of the buffering system getting in the way of gameplay are as follows: buffering a jump and a c input out of hitstun or out of an attack causes you to fall while performing an attack. Holding your dash button, a direction, and an attack after landing in an attempt to do a Dash Attack causes you to perform a forward tilt. In my opinion, the buffering system would be considerably better if movement was prioritized.

@Mr. MuffinEtG: To add-on what's been mentioned: in v0.9, because of the lack of an attack-trading system, two different character connect with attacks at the same time, the lower port to priority always hit first (P1>P2>P3>P4). Player-1 will always beat another players moves, even if the hitbox overlap at the same exact frame. It's an in-game advantage to Player-1.

The issue in Beta is that it's much more noticeable. Seems Player-1's attack don't just always land first, it's almost if Player-2's attack-hitboxes will disappear when coming into contact with Player-1 attacks (That's not exact how it works, just describing how it feels). Meaning, you can't even space around Player-1 attack. Trying attempting to hit them means you will get clipped by their attack almost everytime.

This isn't toward you, Utah P. Teasdale (Harr). Just the people who say these things because I want to explain somethings:
That's sounds very much like the opening months of v0.9b was like before the first couple of patches. People said the combo-game was diminished from v0.9a; next thing you know, people are crying about characters that ignore DI (Lloyd, Fox, Sheik, DK, etc.). Beta's combo potential is clearly evident; how far it will go is way to early too judge. And it doesn't feel worse though, just different. This is the same argument as the ignorance of trying to push 3-stocks/6 minutes because it "feels" slower. Nobody knows how to optimize the changes made to characters, nor trying to make a huge push for optimization. Trying to compare the last several month to 3-years of optimization is foolish. Grab hitboxes were even bigger than they are now across the board in v0.9b, and nearly every character had multiple throws for guarantee follow-ups. It just isn't as present here in Beta. Also, is that reailly a bad thing? Combos into grab just sound optimal for follow-ups? Maybe because I've how I play in every Smash game, it doesn't seems like a bad thing. But I also don't see what is "forcing" people to play that why in Beta. I watch tournament set where players whiff 2/3 their grab attempts in a single match.

Horse fish. v0.9b was constantly complained about having the most polarized roster of playstyle out of any Smash game. Not that you couldn't play differently, but you're discouraged to play any other style. There was one distinct way to play each character; as long as you had good neutral spacing and consistent punishes, you were playing optimally.

Everyone in v0.9b was arguely viable becase, again, broken polarized aspects. That's really is a a heavily preference quality, but I always felt it devoided creative play and distracted from how the character should function in a Smash game. Marth does not be able to tech-chase into higher percents and then into kill setups. Kirby's tech-rolls meant many characters could tech-chase him into death, Sheik could kill any character in 3 Fair from 0%. Zelda could chain-throw Fox/Falcon/DK into oblivion and kill you after 50% off a single mistake. So few things felt skillful or competitively rewarding. I'm glad it's all gone.

And I don't know about this, I no longer experience it. It just feels like you have to manually do inputs. You aren't assisted or get buffered inputs for free. You get rewarded for proper execution, which is how a competitive-game should function.

Port-Priority is a huge mess right now, I agree on that. I feel like there's to fair or honest wins when you auto-win/lose neutral 70% of the match. It's a huge turn-off in enjoying SSF2

I disagree with this ans would like to bring up the case of Kirby, as he's my main and the character I Olay most attention to. Off the top of my head, I can name three Kirbies who played extremely differently to the point of distinction:

Tlord, who seemed to focus on punishes, using inhale's range to his advantage and mastering spit>bair, as well has having an optimal offstage gimping game.
Dlight, who focused on throwing out bair and dthrow>aerial hammer in an attempt to kill the opponent as soon as possible and kirbyciding once he got the stock lead.
Me, who focused on agressively approaching with fair and keeping to the skies as much as possible.

There's also the case of Sora, who could be played campily with usmash, dsmash, thunder, and strike raid cancels (most Sora mains), but some played him more agressively, utilizing flowmotioncancels to approach or simply using a certain someone's patented "Stairway to heaven"
Some examples of distinct Sora mains are Tsobey, Starlight, Neogamr, and AnonimLOLkek.



On a different note, I'd like to point out that 9b in general had more hitstun and more active frames on moves.

But hitstun didn't change in Beta.. Neither did the lack of trades. 9b had the same issue just no one noticed. (and we probably would already have a fix if everyone didn't keep demanding balance patches for things that don't really matter)

Keeping an eye on this thread tho

Ouch. That hurts.

Anyway, my personal biggest complaint regarding Beta are purely selfish. I simply struggle to find any character fun.
Additionally, the balancing can at times feel like the approach to the character is "buff a tool immensely but don't tone down their flaws". and are very good examples of this (Hey, they didn't have enough kill power, let's now give them a LOT of kill power).

Hitstun indeed did not change that much in Beta if we're talking about the engine, but I just played 9b, and it might be my imagination or it might be me spending too much time in the game's files but a specified hitstun of 3-5 on a move wasn't exactly uncommon in 9b, whereas in Beta, hitstun seems to be used a tad bit more scarcely. Not necessarily bad, although I don't prefer it, just different.
As for port priority, yeah, I know it existed in 9b. We just rarely b**** about port in 9b because grounded moves still clanked, which made the presence of port priority considerably less obvious.

That stat you mentioned, what do you think it does? From how I'm reading, it doesn't seem like you are fully aware of what it does.

Hitstun freezes the enemy for a set number of frames while selfstun freezes the olayer for a set number of frames. In 9b, I've noticed that there's more hitstun across the board.
More hitstun than selfstun allows more time that the opponent can't move for followups. Two frames makes a difference, especially with a fighting game that runs at 30 fps.

You are absolutely right (but it sounded like you meant hitstun as in the time someone is stunned during knockback as opposed to specifically referring to victim's freeze frames). In Beta, there are generally more freeze frames for the victim on attacks on the higher end of the percent spectrum but there are less freeze frames for the victim on our moves on the lower end of the percent spectrum (compared to their values in 9b).

But the key difference is that hitStun and selfHitStun are EQUALIZED, not merely increased/decreased. This is what has truly happened, a lot of the moves that had a raw advantage of a couple of frames no longer do. In 9b, if you ever felt like a lot of the combos were just handed to you and you hardly had to do any work to account for DI (an example, any combo involving Fox's shine), this is part of why. Your selfHitStun would finish before their hitStun, so you could get out of endlag/landlag sooner (giving you raw frame advantage)! In the absurd case of Fox's shine, he had so much frame advantage a frame perfect jump out of shine got Fox airborne the same frame as they got out of hitStun(!).

In Beta, the idea of different hitStun/selfHitStun will not go away, but if we do decide to give a move raw frame advantage then there's a conscious decision behind it. Before it was just used without really thinking about the consequences.

You know, I really appreciate you clarifying and explaining those decisions that were made in the balance process. Sometimes, it feels like certain decisions are left completely unexplained, and I appreciate you taking the time to "fill us in."

While I understand your argument against using a positive difference between hitstun and selfstun regularly, I disagree with it. While it allows for "free" and "cookie cutter" combos out of certain moves in particular, it also allows for more combo freedom, as if most moves have this strength, more and more moves are combo options. In my opinion, a better policy would be to apply a higher hitstun than selfstun by default and equalize moves that end up being "free" combo setups, like Fox's shine, nair, and anything else that ends up being free.
Platform fighters like SSF2 will always have cookie cutter combos. For a lot of characters, it may be a throw, or a dair, or a jab, or a nair. Nonetheless, with more combo freedom, people are rewarded for more creative combos, which discourages them from using cookie cutter combos and encourages them to make their own combos.

Nonetheless, I understand your logic behind making this balancing decision, and I respect it, especially now that I understand the reasoning behind it.

i like 9b because dk was the best and he would never lose exepect when that dirty rat named pikachu used his stupid down b which was completly unbeatable.
i think that the reason people dont like beta is because dk cant up b out of every move and that really hurts the games balance. Since its makes dk bad now. I think that we should bring back dks up b but give it even more super armer because hes better now. Another reason that 9b is better is because it has better characters like llyod and fox, llyod and fox were some of the most honest characters in the meta and now they suck like llyod doesnt even have his nair anymore and they replaced it with a completly useless stupid upwards nair and i dont know what they were thinking with that. Llyods spinning nair was the most honest move in the game and it required a lot of skill to hit now they replace it with something dumb. and foxes back air sucks now which is stupid like it wasnt even that good in nine b and now they make it worse like tf
also beta sucks because jiggly puff got buffed even tho she was already the bestest character in the game and now her rest kills even earlier and her bair is even better its so stupid that they made the best character in the game even better and now down throw rest is true and theres no way to get out of it. Also i heard that pacman is super good because like this one guy that i dont know named keyoz beat gax and gax is the best player in the world of all time so i think pacman should be nerfed. most people dont know that pacman actaully can make his items float in the air and theres no way to get rid of them and its super op and theres no way that you can beat it and thats why gax lost its really sad and i think that pacman should be removed from the game

i am glad that they fixed kirbys inhale tho because that was tooo good.

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here is the kids signature:

the best dk main in the world and no one is better then me
check out this sick combo i did on gax who is the best player in the world
https://gfycat.com/TimelyContentIndianskimmer