ParanoidDrone said: Perhaps, but I'd wager that Sakurai looked at the metagame and didn't like how the ledge was being exploited. I assume it was designed to be a relatively vulnerable position, which makes edgehogging as a tactic all the more perplexing in the abstract. ("I need to stop my opponent from recovering. I know, I'll jump offstage and grab the ledge!") Then there are the various ledge stalling techniques that make use of the invincibility frames to make approaching almost impossible. Again, the ledge being used as a beneficial position sounds very strange out of context. ("I need to stall for time and make it a royal pain for the opponent to approach me. I know, I'll jump offstage and grab the ledge! Repeatedly!")



Whether the changes made to the ledge end up being healthy for the game or not remains to be seen, but it's fairly obvious to me that they're Sakurai's reaction to edgehogging and ledge stalling. Click to expand...

If you jump after the person for off-stage shenanigans

I

f you try to exploit ledge trumping

exactly

I actually don't mind him getting rid of ledgestalling to be honest because it was kind of...stupid (stupid is a bit strong but couldn't think of a better word). But edgehogging I'm not so sure. I feel like edgehogging was a legitimate way of killing people, and actually required crazy reads sometimes. Plus it made it so you didn't need hard-hits or good gimp moves to get the job done because you had another tool to help you finish people.I say it favors the recoverie because hits are weaker, and people recover high a lot more (due to them being hit at higher angles) and it's fairly easy to sweet spot in this game. Also air dodges are mad fast ( of course they are still punishable but it's more difficult ).So after playing the demo ( mind you it was NPCs so my theory crafting could be weak ) I found that it was kind of difficult to edgeguard people. Because......faster airdodging means that the defense has less to fear while airdodging off-stage....means you need two good reads. The first, is knowingwhen they are going to grab the ledge. This was actually kind of hard because a second too soon and they trump you. But you can't do it too late because in this game if they do an action at all while on the ledge they won't be able to be trumped. This is why you sometimes see two people on the ledge because the first guy started to roll onto the stage ( for example ) when the second guy grabbed it.* Also note there is a split second before you can act when you grab the ledge, so perhaps when people become more accustomed to the timing, forced ledge trumping will be easier. But it isn't that big and I still think the balance favors the recoverie.Second read is after the successful trump knowing where the opponent will go. It's not as easy as trumping, then immediately jumping off and B-airing because of that ledge delay I talked about easier. So then it becomes another prediction game of if the opponent is going to go for the stage, go for the ledge, or go recovery low and go for the ledge. I suppose for certain characters this is better for ( I heard ZeRo did this well with Bowser so I supposed his big hitboxes covers multiple options ) but I know for a fact with Mario the only way to punish them was to for sure know if they were going high, medium, or low.And it seems to make good recoveries even better. In games like Brawl you could at least grab the ledge (which forces them on-stage ) then punish them, but in this game unless the meta grows to make forced ledge trumping really good seems like there isn't too much you can do. They can just go for the ledge because they can always grab it and sweet spotting is super easy.This is why I say it favors the recoverie too much...It's like they aren't even put in a situation that requires off-stage play that much ( because people recovery high anyway ) and when they are the game is weighted in their favor. I'm not saying I haven't been gimped or gimped the NPC ( I gimped the NPC a decent amount but seemed like my tactics would be less effective against humans ) but I feel like ledge trumping in its current form is odd considering the games other mechanics.