My comments to the daily update from the other thread:
The changes to the metagame could be a really great in mixing and speed up the gameplay . It forces the player, who launches his opponent over the edge, to be more aggressive and following him over the edge to really finish him off. Just standing near the edge and wait for him to return, could be no longer an option, since the other player will properly trump him over the ledge. Since he spend more time in the air and has properly a higher percentage.
This will encourage much more risk and reward scenarios, offensive play-style and of course defuse planking. But most importantly Sakurai and his team address an problem of the competitive-community. This means, they are watching into the scene and support competitive gaming.
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Another good idea is the disabling of the 100% threshold. Reaching the edge with a high percentage and another player guarding it, is already hard enough. Giving the player also a disadvantage to get back on the stage, is over pushing him after the hard work of recovering.
Before this change the launching player had a too big advantage, since he got four options:
- Do nothing and wait for the other player to return (no risk, no reward)
- Attack the player at the edge (low risk, high reward)
- Guard the edge (low risk, high reward)
- Go after him over the edge (high risk, high reward).
Waiting for the player always was a save and still rewarding option, since the launched player was always in the disadvantage and only could end the edge-game, if he successfully worked his way though the three defense stands (over the edge, at the edge, returning from the edge) and was finally on the stage again (to possible get launched again or launch the other player to start the punching bag cycle).
Now the the edge-game ends earlier. If the launched player is near the edge, he already successfully recovered and gets his options back. Which is in my opinion already enough hard work to accomplish. It also forced the launching player to go over the edge and take the high risk and high reward options, since the other options become more unattractive (low risk, low reward).
It also speeds up the gameplay. Players no longer will simply wait at the edge and do nothing, which always was a good low risk and high reward option. And the whole punching bag cycle will get defused. By this i mean following: players gets launched, while the other player waits at the edge, he recovers, gets launched again to his disadvantages, recovers again, repeat until the launched player fails or the other player makes a big, stupid mistake.
In the future matches will properly more often end over the edge (the launcher finishing off the other player or the launched player counter him) or with smashing the player over the edge of the screens. This will properly help the heavy and slow characters, since there advantages always on the level, while the fast and light characters need to take the high risk and high reward options more often.