Patches

Ok so i have a funny story.

One day I was playing super smash bros for the Nintendo Ultimate and they put in this BITCH character named Joker. I got really mad because half of his moves made my WW2 PTSD resurface, I wanted him gone. I still want him gone to this day.

Good story

Being one the head of the #NerfJoker fan-club, I guess I’m obliged to explain to the five year olds that use Amino what the hell patches do (If you’re actually five don’t DM me I’ll send you illegal pictures).

Start.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Patches

Smash 4 and the Wii U brought something really new to the series: the ability to globally send game data via internet. The forbidden smash also did this but ya had to stuff on an SD card and that really slowed down my pony porn s so I just didn’t do that. So, Super Smash Bros 3DS and Wii U got identical patches that added a variety of shizz: Stages, Mii Costumes, DLC Characters, Music, etcetera, etcetera. Though, the big thing that patches brought were character changes. Which, um, did a lot of things that changed around the game.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Nerfs

Not all characters are made with the same love, that should be pretty obvious at this point. I’d bet money that Sakurai shoves a pin into his Kirby voodoo doll every night. So when Sakurai made and produced Smash 4 (trademarked) and the competitive community found some Broken Shit (trademarked), the big man himself took a look at it and said

He NERFED (that’s a vocab word, write it down, you’ll need to know it for the test) those characters to be lesser forms of themselves. They retained the same tools as they did before, but they were changed to be worse and make it overall harder to achieve their competitive objective. Most of the time nerfing meant increasing lag on something so it can’t combo, decreasing knockback on something so it can’t easily kill, increasing knockback so something also can’t combo, or decreasing a low tier’s air speed for absolutely no reason.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Buffs

Smash 4 was residence to a lot of “god please put me out of existence” characters, and patches were able to help them not suck. Unless you’re stupid you can just read whatever I wrote up above and topsy turvy it. Characters who were lacking and slacking got buffs so they could start clapping and __________. Literally the opposite of nerfs, their data was changed to open up gateways for combos, killing, neutral, recovering, you get the message.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Neutral Changes

There are some moves or properties that get changed and it’s really not simple to classify them as an overall buff or nerf, just a freak of nature. Most radical example is Mr Game and Watch forward air from Smash 4 to Ultimate. Half of Game and Watch players will tell you how much Sakurai fucked up in Ultimate with this move alone and others make a brand new religion just from the bomb. I swear that’s not a joke I’m not racist please

Something that started off in Ultimate were universal changes to similar moves or mechanics. One of the more recent patches made it so characters with a stall-then-fall down air couldn’t use the move in certain situations and not fall for a while. There are also overall game changes that indirectly nerf and buff characters, such as the reduced projectile shield damage helping and hurting just about every character.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Patch Culture

The introduction of patches did another thing for the Smash series, this one not as good. People realized that they could hope and pray for their main to be buffed or their demon character to get nerfed instead of play the game the way it was. Bayonetta was nowhere on the level of Brawl Meta Knight, but received more backlash from the community because she could’ve been nerfed again but wasn’t. That and a couple other reasons but let’s believe I’m right for once.

Because Ultimate is still up and kicking, patches come constantly. There are people like Myran who find a need to express a problem with the game 24/7 in hopes that an underpaid Nintendo employee goes like “このマザーファッカーはオリマールのペニスが本当に欲しい” so they buff Olimar shield. Which should rightfully be buffed but still. Patch culture at its finest. Nerf culture is the most prevalent of the two, people see and play character and don’t want to anyone, but don’t think you Buff culture people get away with it free either, not-improving-ass.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Patches in Smash 4

If you think post 1.1.6 Smash 4 was jank, you don’t even know the game. There were at least 5 characters that broke the game upon release, and nerfs luckily came to the rescue. So they nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and nerfed, and oh look at that! The game turned extremely bland! Dear god I’d rather get my ass beat with a butter sock than play Smash 4 neutral versus Bayo. Nerf culture came into effect and people realized that if you take away all the sauce from the game there won’t be any sauce in the game. Weird concept, right?

Patches in Ultimate

From recruiting people who actually played competitive Smash, Nintendo learned that it’s not a good idea to go buck wild on that Nerf Gun (trademarked). So far, they’ve really only gone to nerf things that are janky or supid. The characters they nerfed were pretty good to begin with, it’s a lot better considering I can count how many characters they’ve nerfed out of meta on one hand. They’ve been smart about how they change the game and I applaud Nintendo for that. Congrats on not mes something for once in your career.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Nerf Joker

Yep, this is propaganda.

But in all honesty, Ultimate is the most balanced any Smash game has been in a hot minute. There truly are no characters that can’t get solid results as long as some effort is in place. The problems I have with the game are with the general mechanics of it (spotdodge cancelling and shield stun) and there’s some stuff I’d wish would change but I can’t do anything about (walking through characters). And I don’t like Joker. Otherwise Ultimate is pretty much godsend.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

This doesn’t feel nearly as long as it needs to be how do I make blog longer

Ow ok give me rep

Best Wishes, Draco M.