Unfortunately, yes.
This implies that Lucas and Wolf were planned to be cut from the beginning, right?
It's definitely possible, but it feels wrong to me to cut characters from already under-represented and niche series. When they had to make cuts in Brawl they choose a Mario rep, a Zelda rep, two Pokémon rep and a Fire Emblem rep. Mario fans got Wario instead, Zelda fans got Toon Link, Pokémon fans got Squirtle, Ivysaur, Charizard and Lucario, Fire Emblem fans got Ike. Everyone was (rightly) disappointed for the cuts, but we got plenty of newcomers from the same series to make up for the loss. As a big EarthBound fan, though, there's just no upside to Lucas getting cut. Star Fox fans wanted Krystal as a fourth rep, and are ending up with two. We're just losing two beloved characters without any compensation, while the second most represented series is getting two newcomers.
I know, it's a matter of popularity -- it's not like there are a lot of Lucas and Wolf supporters around. But if they were deemed worthy enough for Brawl, I don't think they should be dropped now.
Either planned to be cut at the beginning, or cut once development started and they realized that every veteran required X amount of work to finish, and had to cut them there.
Like, making up numbers here, each veteran was allocated 100 man-hours to bring into smash 4, so to bring everyone back, it would be 3900 man hours.
Situation A: They only had money for 3300 man hours, so they had to make some cuts, which included Squirtle, Ivysaur, Snake, Lucas, Ice Climbers, and Wolf.
Situation B: They estimated and allocated 100 man hours per veteran, but in reality, it took 115 man hours per veteran. This meant they could only bring over about 34 veterans, which meant that Squirtle, Ivysaur, Snake, Lucas, Ice Climbers, and Wolf had to be cut.
Situation C: A combination of A and B (some cut initially, more cut later due to time restraints).
Once again, all made up in my head, no idea if true, numbers are not real, they may all be coming back, etc.