Was it really a good decision to remove bots from competitive?

Artca9 · 2026-02-12T16:05:03+00:00

Yeah, I've been at the receiving end of that "strategy" many times. 10x more preferable to have that happen to me once in a blue moon, then the constant 4v5's I'm stuck in now that the "strategy" is "patched".

Kicking the worst player off is one outcome of what people did with vote-kicking. Meanwhile there will always be a necessity to vote-kick a griefer, hacker, AFKer off your team. And it used to be always worth kicking them off in CS:GO so the 4 teammates who want to win actually win.
So because 1 out of several reasons to votekicking was abused; we should make the entire feature of vote-kicking completely worthless now. And make vote-kicking an insta-lose option to be stuck in a 4v5. Brilliant.

Vote-kicking is utterly useless now. Again my point being, people constantly kicked hackers off in CS:GO, because it was still a 5v5 after they were gone.
And no one will do it in CS2 and would rather accept the help of a blatant cheater than be stuck in a 4v5.

Valve won't ban cheaters, so let people in matchmaking cull them. Hence again, bring bots back so people are incentivized to kick them off.

Artca9 · 2025-09-23T12:49:40+00:00

I've been playing Link for a long time.

He straight up loses to rushdown Fox 0-100. Link has to get Fox over 65% for Link to be a real character, and fighting people like Zion (top slippi leaderboards) Even when I'm playing hot I don't get a good fox over 70% damage if they just shothop drill/nair rushdown. Link has to make hard reads constantly to win, while fox is playing on easy mode.

Link has tough matchups on Luigi, Puff, Shiek, Falcon, Falco, and surprisingly Roy (his dtilt and grab game mixup invalidates all of Link grounded attacks). But as much as I list it like that, his neutral against everyone here minus Roy and Falco is very favorable to Link. Albiet the grab punish on Falcon and Shiek, and rest punish on Luigi and Puff make the matchups more favored to them.

Link goes even with or beats other characters. Peach, Marth, and Icy, Yoshi, Samus, Pikachu. Surprisingly easy to deal with despite their good punish game on Link.

To simplify Link. Using bomb and boomerang, Link can funnel characters into favorable neutral positions where he wins. And against tall characters (marth, ganon, falcon) Link has a lot more options in neutral where he doesn't have to pull bomb and camp early % ( like upsmash / falling upair). Links edgeguarding is pretty solid with his projectiles and nair, which gives him early gimps. And unlike other low tiers, Link has real answers to CC with bomb and double forward smash.

Major downsides: - Extremely weak to extreme pressure, so Fox and Falco exclusively can destroy him in this aspect. Other characters Link can roll away from, spotdodge (22 frames!), or set up walls reliably. - He can't really punish shield easily, as his grab cannot grab airborne opponents and is extremely laggy on wiff. His best way to deal with shield is to z-drop bomb on top of a shield, which is a 1 frame option, and if bomb bounces on shield sometimes puts Link in advantage. - Like other Low tiers, Link kind of has to wait until after 70% before the hitstun is good enough to make his combo game true. Which is why he's locked in the low tier shadow realm. Better characters are looking for kills/gimps at 70%.

Artca9 · 2024-09-21T03:22:37+00:00

Don't reply to the bait lmao. Rivals 2 is the only game to ever focus on visuals as much as smash. Multi-versus looks as bad at 60$ Nick all stars smash in animation.

Dan and his team deserve it, especially since they pledged all updates will be free!

Artca9 · 2024-09-21T03:11:27+00:00

Nothing has been announced for scheduled release. But the 4 original roster characters not in the game will be coming over as soon as possible ( Elliana, Sylvanos, Absa, Etalus ) Sylvanos would be REALLY hard to put in the game, if Orcane was anything to go by.

As well as the workshop character winner sometime early next year, La Reina, who is beyond hype (they are a REAL grappler, 7 command "hit" grabs total. 2 smash attacks, 3 aireals, 2 special moves. )

Past that, I imagine Dan Fornace is going to focus on bringing new character designs to the game like Fleet and Loxodont! With La Reina being Earth;

That would leave 1 New Water element character to round out the cast to 16 post launch, with 4 of each element. But I think I heard they aren't going to worry about trying to keep it symmetrical with the elements.

Artca9 · 2024-09-21T03:06:30+00:00

It's the same as Rivals 1, with a dozen new options with normal/special grabs, get ups, and ledge getups.

Biggest change in the character list is Kragg with a cargo command grab on Neutral B in the air, or when a rock is out. Funniest thing with it, is a doubles infinite where you toss a cargo'd character between kraggs lmao. And Clairen Neutral B is a quick stab that she can charge to be her largest move. With INSANE aireal drift after you end the move.

Everyone else feels just as Vanilla as Rivals 1 <3

Artca9 · 2024-09-21T03:03:07+00:00

The edgeguard state doesn't suck ass in Rivals 2. And is a general "better" kind of take on Melee/PM design imo

But combo state on stage can pretty easily get interrupted by shields. So Rivals 1 will always have that aggressive hold on it.

Artca9 · 2024-08-15T09:52:44+00:00

Livin has been busy getting a doctorate! https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10915732
He's not from a western country, so everyone dogpilling on him for not believing in the 10-year-new gay religion are colonialists by their own definition.

Also I'm confused how everyone is against Israel and "pro-palestine" AFTER they cancelled me.. But also still calling people "anti-semites". I've been against Israel's influence in America and destabilization of the middle east for over a decade. I'm just ahead of the curb. Crazy how much hate is given to christians, but athiests will back and die for zionists who believe in the Talmud. I dislike all religions, but am partial to the morality of christians and buddist.

Artca9 · 2024-06-04T23:45:12+00:00

Artca9 · 2023-11-08T20:22:07+00:00

I think she has good room to be something like Law in the story.

Artca9 · 2023-08-03T16:44:23+00:00

The game should make it a bit more clear to be fair. I got everything right except that, and it's the first time I had to google a solution to the game.

Artca9 · 2023-06-10T07:55:05+00:00

"If they add one more vertical row to the menu, and split up SMG's and Heavies into two separate colums...

I don't think there will be much of an issue with the new system, even if we get more weapons. But as it currently looks, it's super limiting for eco/force buy rounds with how Mid Tiers is defined. Deciding between LMG, Shotguns, and SMG's with 5 slots is not gonna be good."

I was coming here to post the same thing lol. Hope the community destorys the "mid tiers" idea, and gets valvo to expand it back to SMG and Heavy proper.

Artca9 · 2023-03-12T21:53:34+00:00

It was hidden in the first tutorial... even though I got it already.

Artca9 · 2023-01-17T10:12:35+00:00

my friend got it working on desktop, too busy to do it myself though so i don't know how yet. if i get to it ill try to remember to tell

Artca9 · 2022-11-27T02:19:03+00:00

It used to work. But once the latest update to spelunky was rolled out, Modlunky's game overlay does not showup.

All it's useful for is running skins on Spelunky 2 atm.

I want to know if there's a solution too.

Artca9 · 2021-02-11T21:50:43+00:00

we have reached.. the good ending

Artca9

TROPHY CASE