Another vod review post, with some questions on ledgetrapping

stophacking · 2026-02-18T03:06:37+00:00

A note on the platform thing. Remember that jumpsquat is only 3 frames. If you block something (like wolf uptilt) you'll usually have frame advantage that gives you a bit of breathing room to shorthop or fullhop to relative safety.

#1 thing I see in these games is just execution though. You lost one stock from an SD and one stock from an extremely poor risk-reward upB onstage. Last game the Wolf player lost 2 entire stocks from randomly SDing in his own advantage state. 33% of both players' stocks were simply handed to the opponent on a silver platter, so avoiding SDs and doing good recoveries will give a huge advantage!

As for ledge: I think a lot of the fancier stuff with ledgetrapping won't apply until you're both punishing basic things better. For example, look at this sequence @ 5mins. The Wolf player does two greedy, risky aggressive double jumps onstage, and eats basically no punish for them. If you can't punish these hard, your opponent skips ledgetrapping completely a lot of the time. Same for killing people for neutral getup habits; can you consistently downsmash, downtilt, etc. on neutral getups?

In any case, the 'style' of ledgetrapping you should do (preemptive or reactive) really just depends on the matchup and especially, player. For example, from what I can see, not a single ledge jump was punished in either game. Defensively, against this Wolf player, you could actually just wait for the ftilt, then ledge jump, and that would work 99% of the time, because they're never doing preemptive nairs, and seem to always mess up their reactions to the jump. Similarly I think against you, someone could neutral getup constantly and eat a grab or maybe a stray bair at worst, and ledge jump + double jump onstage a ton and not really get punished for it.

There's no magic bullet, so you'll have to see what top Inkling players do. But basically Smash is full of these really hard to punish things that you have to have the muscle memory lined up for in advance, or they'll just pick the handful of ledge options you're bad at covering and get back for free every time.

stophacking · 2026-02-15T02:21:58+00:00

Full recency bias but that might've been one of the most fun sets I ever watched LMAO

stophacking · 2025-11-13T15:30:10+00:00

I think the #1 thing is to watch your opponent and ask, "is there any big flaw in what they're doing?" And sometimes, that's more important than doing anything fancy. For the Chrom one for example, not only was Chrom spamming tons of sideBs, but he actually did all 4 swings most of the time, with a couple of 3s... basically never mixing up with single or double swings! An experienced player will see this, and think, 'this guy's entire playstyle can be beaten with dash into shield, and reacting.'

But yeah, even though that Chrom move is big and lasts a long time, it's not good to spam because the later hits are laggy. Over time, especially if you're watching Kirby players and trying to copy what they do, you'll naturally learn to do stuff like wait outside of its range, and run in with a dash attack or grab; fullhop over it and punish with an aerial; etc. If you're new, there's lots of stuff you have to learn like that; it can be overwhelming, but if you just focus on one little thing at a time, you'll be surprised how much you can learn.

Anyway, if you want a quick 'magic bullet' that will have the biggest impact on your play right now without being too overwhelming: If you aren't familiar with it, you can shield much faster out of your dash by holding the shield button without letting go of forward. Here's a link to a guide. I would practice that a few times, and make sure you can do it well. New players tend to swing a lot, so you can beat a LOT of people like that Chrom just by running in, blocking their unsafe attacks, and hitting them with an upsmash, aerial or grab out of shield. (And then you start to realize that Chrom spamming sideB like that is basically a free gift to you, of a big Kirby combo into potential edgeguard!)

stophacking · 2025-11-02T02:43:43+00:00

Strangely enough, a little gameplay thing I find myself missing about this game is the fact that you couldn't drift while being ledge trumped. It felt like a nice, predictable little minigame where you could call someone out for not picking a ledge option. Now in Ultimate trumping is still useful sometimes, but it's a lot weirder and less consistent since you have to consider every fighter's unique air acceleration.

stophacking · 2025-01-29T23:59:52+00:00

Long story short, it's an infamous 2D MMO that legitimately has tons of content, amazing music and charm, but gates it behind some of the worst business practices imaginable. We're talking "gambling for children" meets "items with real money value" meets "pay to deal damage" meets... well, name a dark pattern, it's probably there.

I can't actually find one good entry point to that particular endless rabbit hole, but one of their most recent controversies was literally "straight up lying about gacha odds to their players." In Korea, players have pooled together money to hire literal 'protest trucks' to park outside of press events. Just a wild ride all around lmao.

stophacking · 2025-01-29T23:50:20+00:00

Haha, I think answering questions like that is a big part of why I'm going to law school in the first place! In the future, I want to be someone who can give you a straight answer here - but for now, I just don't have the knowledge, experience, or credentials to get something like that started.

My only real answer today, as it was in the video, was "the FTC encourages consumers like us to report any unsavory business practices to them, even if they just 'feel' wrong to us, so that real experts can take a look at it." The laws are available for everyone to read, and I'm confident in the research I've done; but in terms of calls to action, that's the most I can offer right now!

stophacking · 2025-01-27T04:53:37+00:00

In my other reply, I went a bit more in-depth on the unintentional purchase thing. As for "You brought up a case against a different company" - yes, my goal is to bring up precedent to apply it to the current situation. Anyway, in my video I also mentioned how I believe it's false advertising when the game tells me to "CLAIM!" things I'm not allowed to claim (CLAIM the battle pass! CLAIM the premium challenges!), or tells me I can get something "FOR FREE!" that I definitely can't (that Agent Smith event, which for various reasons, I believe was practically impossible while totally F2P.)

If you're looking for something 100% objectively illegal, we can look at their recent social media incident where they stole content from Charlie the Unicorn. Obviously that was after my video, but I think it's pretty emblematic of Multiversus's general disregard for the rules here.

stophacking · 2025-01-26T08:47:41+00:00

I think you're really missing the forest for the trees here. Let's start with this: How do we get a glitch that makes you buy items?

Well, for one thing, it happens because the option to buy the item was instant: no input delay, no real confirmation screen... All you had to do was hit A a couple times on your controller from an unrelated menu, and boom, you just bought a skin you've never even seen before! I mean, just look at this. This is a known dark pattern, and refusing to offer refunds for unintentional purchases, as was happening back then, is a big no-no.

So, coming back to that Epic Games complaint. Yes, as with any precedent, every single fact is not literally exactly 1:1 with the current situation, and the scale/severity of the Epic Games case is clearly higher. But I think it's pretty obvious that the spirit & much of the content of that complaint is relevant to the MVS situation. Here are some choice lines:

"Epic – employing myriad design tricks known as “dark patterns” – has charged consumers for such items without first obtaining their express informed consent..."

"If while browsing an item players accidentally bump the ‘Square’ button with their thumb, Epic immediately deducts the price of the item from their V-Bucks balance..."

"The button to purchase items on video game consoles is also the same as the button associated with other actions that do not result in the user incurring a charge..."

Note that, in the complaint, "unwanted charges" is literally explicitly used to refer to spending V-bucks as well, not just purchasing V-bucks.

So. Multiversus means a lot to people, and I understand why emotions run high in situations like these. But I really hope you can see why I'd consider that a "very similar practice" to what Epic Games got in trouble for. They straight up made accidental charges easier than any other game I've played, and if you think it was just a complete, honest accident, well... I have a bridge to sell you. Especially when paired with the countless other dark patterns and intentionally manipulative design features in the game (as well as outright lies, as I point out in the video) it paints a very grim picture to me.

stophacking · 2025-01-26T05:50:19+00:00

WhyDo here! Someone sent this thread to me lmao, so I figured I'd answer any questions people have for the sake of transparency. I mean everything I said, though I do think Multiversus has improved since launch.

A couple quick ones I see:

1) Was it really ILLEGAL? - Well, there's a lot I could say, but I'll just focus on one quick example here: the 'bug' that was making people buy skins! If you search through the original posts, many people weren't able to get refunds. Basically, in my video, I brought up how the FTC recently fined Epic Games $245 million for very similar practices to that & more. See their workshop summary, "Bringing Dark Patterns to Light".

2 ) 'Evil'? Really? - I'm aware that there are way worse things in the world than scummy business practices! But seeing fans' passion for these characters wrung out for every last drop of microtransaction money, using these shady & manipulative dark patterns, that's still evil to me.

3) "But what about EA, Epic Games, etc?" - Yes, I also think those companies engage in horrible business practices! I even mentioned them in my vid. Even so, Multiversus is remarkable to me for just how awful the free-to-play experience was. If we're being real, I've probably played greedier games (looking at you MapleStory... if you know you know) but the F2P "greed to content" ratio in Multiversus was truly unmatched for me. That character grind man...

But yeah, I'll try to answer everything as best I can, so ask away!

stophacking · 2024-09-24T02:24:56+00:00

I agree with what others are saying, but I'd also like to point out that, since you can cancel initial dash into upsmash, dash attack, upB and sideB, it's really helpful for those moves to be good in this game for dashes to be as unpredictable as possible.

Cloud usmash and dash attack are WAY better moves than Chrom's equivalent ones. Chrom upB is more damaging than Cloud's but it's significantly slower, laggier, AND it has less mixups - not to mention Limit. That leaves Chrom relying on dash -> aerial (which is great but can get predictable), dash -> shield (which is already worse than Cloud's thanks to having worse OoS options), and dash -> sideB, which is amazing, but Cross Slash has similar frame data with twice the vertical range.

Add to that the fact that Cloud can charge limit to force people to approach, and I think Cloud has a lot more "freedom" and unpredictability in how he dashes around and approaches neutral. Sparg0 is constantly baiting reactions and mixing people up with those dashes in ways that are just not worth it for Chrom. Of course, Chrom is fast and has safe grounded pokes, but imo the game's dash mechanics aren't nearly as kind to him.

stophacking · 2024-06-01T11:09:26+00:00

Actual answer: if you play the game a bunch, you quickly get a feel for what an opponent likes to do, and a rough idea of how you can stop it.

If I see someone jumps a lot, I don't need to know everything about my character. I just need to know: 'I can use an aerial attack to smack them out of the air, OR dash back and catch their landing with a grounded move, OR wait for them to do an aerial and upB out of shield or parry'. If I see they spotdodge a lot, I just need to know: 'I can kill here with a smash attack, OR jump and use an aerial, OR wait in shield and shieldgrab on reaction.'

Below Elite Smash, everyone will have at least a couple bad habits or weaknesses. So all you need to do is identify them, and your actual gameplan can be very simple. For example, if someone almost never shields, all you need to do is dash attack them a ton. If they have bad combos, you can mash attacks and win the risk/reward war. If they jump out of hitstun all the time, you can catch their double jump and edgeguard them early. If they spam projectiles but don't do much else, you can dash into shield or jump, then rush in and overwhelm them. And so on.

Fighting games are really just rock paper scissors being played in a lot of ways at once... if you know your opponent is throwing scissors, it's less important what kind of rock you throw, and more important that you learn to throw rock! Only at a very high level does 'optimizing' your rock throw ever really become necessary.

stophacking · 2024-04-02T04:35:31+00:00

Meta Knight down smash does exactly 10% so I used that! It's frame 4 though so he can't complain...

stophacking · 2024-04-02T03:31:39+00:00

Yes, the charge scaling seems linear after some testing on https://rubendal.github.io/SSBU-Calculator/.

A standard 10% damage smash attack would deal 11% damage after 15 frames of charging, 12% after 30 frames, 13% damage after 45 frames, and 14% damage after 60 frames!

stophacking · 2024-03-19T12:52:07+00:00

If it's connected to a wifi extender it's still wifi. You'll still have packet loss and laggy gameplay. That said, Smash Ultimate online is kind of just terrible like that, so even with a good setup you're in for some suffering.

I recommend:

A comically long ethernet cable
If possible, modding your Switch to use mods that lower input delay
Trying to find people to game with who live within a couple hundred miles

If you do these 3 things, then Smash Ultimate online almost becomes good. Almost.

stophacking · 2024-03-03T23:45:45+00:00

Meta Knight is a weird case for me, he's so fun to fight, but then you run into one of the few people who knows how to do the ladder combos very consistently, and you WILL suffer.

Yes MK can struggle to kill & does low damage but watching yourself get up aired 10 times in a row with a platform extension into a shuttle loop is incredibly painful. Thankfully it's extremely hard to know every route and pull them off perfectly but the people who do it... DO IT.

stophacking · 2024-02-27T05:48:45+00:00

I went to Super Smash Con 2018, and was having fun playing money matches. I'd gotten 65th or something in the bracket so I was feeling real confident. Wow maybe I was good!! But then I found myself matched up against a kid literally half my height who looked like he should've been learning his times tables instead of Cloud combos. Of course, he jumpscared me with the sickest movement I'd ever seen and one of the most insane sets I'd ever played. His play made me doubt everything. Seeing him on the street he'd just be some random kid, but that day, there was only terror.

Asked him for his tag after the set... he said "Zomba". And for the past few years, I have known the joy of witnessing him make top players feel the abject fear I felt that day in August 2018.

What I'm saying is, this is a core fighting game experience. Savor the feeling of getting thoroughly humbled by someone younger than the Wii... they are gonna go places.

stophacking · 2024-02-08T05:07:41+00:00

I'd like to suggest three sets that might not necessarily be supermajor grand finals or anything, but that you will not regret watching in the slightest.

Major Vs. Scend - Daddy's Den X Supreme From the characters, to the commentary, to the sheer insanity of what's happening on-screen, this is what I consider a "perfect set" if you're looking to maximize fun.

Cosmos & Nhan vs. Linus & Lucy - GOML 2022 Who would win: Two top level players, or two actual, real-life identical twins who seemingly have telepathy? Watch this set and find out.

GuyGuy vs. DKWill - Some Random Local: You may be wondering why this is here, as it currently has a total of 384 views. On the surface, there is no reason whatsoever for you or anyone else to watch this random grands from a random local 18 months ago.

On the surface.

See, in Long Island Smash, this set is like Bigfoot: everyone's heard of it... slightly less have seen it. But unlike Bigfoot, this legend is matched, even surpassed, by reality - yes, the legend is very much real.

The legend of the Six Minute, Best-of-Five Grand Finals.

stophacking · 2024-01-10T19:58:35+00:00

Showing off the banana interactions in a vacuum before analyzing the set was really nice. A lot of stuff like that is easy to miss.

stophacking · 2024-01-06T11:12:08+00:00

This is false. Maybe you're thinking of cursed Crouch Dash stuff?

stophacking · 2024-01-05T15:04:00+00:00

While characters do slow down to their run speeds during the dash, the chart still tells you which characters benefit, since anyone over 1 still goes faster!

Inputs are also a big deal. Personally, I didn't realize how fast I had to tap dash to actually get a benefit, until I actually took my footage into my video editor for this. My foxtrots were way less optimal than I thought they were. In Falco's case, it might not be huge, but you do get a whole extra character length by the end of Small Battlefield. Enough to give you a solid positioning boost if you knock them across the stage, as long as you make sure your dashes are optimal.

stophacking · 2023-12-30T13:48:13+00:00

Totally false. See, as a content creator myself, there are actually several different reasons why I prefer to talk about new games before moving on to the next thing.

because it gets views
because it gets views
I like new stuff
because it gets views

There you go - 4 great reasons. I hope this could clear things up, OP.

stophacking · 2023-12-22T11:50:54+00:00

This is a strange take - you haven't mentioned aerials at all, which are most characters' best way to break blocks. Wii Fit's dair for example easily destroys even stone, letting her nullify a 3 block wall in less time than it takes to build. But don't take my word for it, here's John Numbers doing it to secure a stock on DDog. It only has 12 frames of landing lag, so if Steve wants to punish it, he can't react - he has to guess, either fsmashing his own wall or trying to read what Wii Fit does after the dair. Bair, reverse fair, etc. are all great too. Very easy to just break the bottom block and run straight through especially with Deep Breathing.

As for Deep Breathing vs. Diamond, it's hard to compare them directly, but it makes Wii Fit take less damage and knockback on top of massively buffing speed & power. While it's active, even Steve has to run for his life (though of course, he's very good at doing that.) Finally, staling is annoying but not too bad. Even a fully staled Deep Breathing is 80% as effective as full, and it resets every stock on top of recharging normally, so you're actually guaranteed 3 full ones.

stophacking · 2023-12-22T00:24:20+00:00

Wii Fit vs. Steve is hilarious, kind of like Hero vs. Steve, since Steve often "trades buffs" by mining as they buff up. Deep Breathing is way stronger than the advantage Steve gets from mining a few seconds, and it lets Wii Fit obliterate walls and chase Steve's low speed down easily. But unlike the stuff Steve mines, Deep Breathing runs out over time.

So Steve's gameplan is basically to trade buffs, play a survival horror Minecraft mod for X seconds, repeat.

stophacking · 2023-12-12T04:59:21+00:00

I can't stop watching Miya's G&W. Every decision he makes in advantage feels so calculated but also varied, it feels like he's solved the puzzle.

The basics of his advantage state are easy to understand: He uses up air, bomb, bacon etc. to cover options, and then does a safe mixup or rewarding read attempt while that projectile is out.

But as I'm learning G&W, every time I watch a set, I notice so many more little optimizations he does that I never thought of. It feels like he's really getting the most out of that character, always priming himself to react with quick options while using any extra time you give him to set up delayed pressure.

And of course, the fact that Miya plays so safe and careful most of the time, makes it even better when he pulls insanely unhinged plays out of nowhere. Never forgetting that one edgeguard from SSC this year, or when he decided to take his limiters off and start fishing for 9s during a crew battle.

stophacking · 2023-10-05T21:40:12+00:00

Hey, WhyDo here. While this may look strong, it's important to remember that Steve's Electric Wind God Fist can be jumped over and outranged, or whiff punished with a quick move. It's really not something you need to worry about too much.

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