Introduction

So here everyone was, having fun in irl tournaments and inviting friends over to play some smash bros. Life was good. Then BAM, COVID-19 hit and here we are stuck inside, probably on the computer like I am now. Little did we know, the community of a game called Smash Bros Ultimate would be affected too. Suddenly, online was the only option, and online tier lists started springing up left and right. Sonic rose as the demon king.

Why is the internet so bad, what should you do? I'll try and explain it all here.

Why the online is so bad

Sadly, I'm no expert on this matter. However, I will post a link to a good explanation made by Jake Van Wagoner. In short, however, he explains that Nintendo uses a function called Sync(). What this does is it reaches out to all players in the game on every frame to see what their controller is doing. If one player doesn't respond, the game freezes until everyone responds on the same frame. That explains why your game freezes every 2 seconds when playing that one guy online.

Link: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-online-mode-so-bad-in-Smash-Bros-Ultimate#:~:text=The answer claiming the problem,and servers are much better).

How the online affects gameplay

As many of you would have noted by now, a lot of people complain about the input delay. What this is is the amount of time between when you press a button and when the action you attempted to do shows up on screen. Due to many having a poor connection, this input delay can vary from a few games to entire seconds, from my experience. It doesn't help that Smash Ultimate has 6 frames of input delay to BEGIN with, and that the buffer system can make people mess up.

What consequences does the input delay have? Well, it can make you mess up timings, combos, parrying, dodging attacks, etc. A lot of player's have difficulty improving nowadays due to this, as their gameplay is heavily reaction based. Many also rely on reads. Imagine knowing what someone would do, but missing the punish due to input lag, or having the timing down on a parry that could save you the game, but you release it too late or too early! Finally, it makes a tech significantly harder to achieve now.

These reasons are why ultimate continues to struggle with online tourneys, compared to other fighting games.

How online affects the tier lists, and Sonic *shiver\*

Due to how combos can no longer work online, and the fact that people struggle a lot more with dodging, reading and reacting to attacks, the online tier lists are completely different. In fact, they now favor speed and projectile characters. You can go analyze the tier lists by yourselves, however I'll be talking about the changes in placement that tend to happen for a certain group of characters, and the reasons why I believe these changes took place:

Speed oriented characters usually have quick moves in terms of frame data, and can approach and distance themselves from you with ease. Due to their fast attacks, evading them is hard, and reacting is no longer an option. Even if you do manage to read one of these characters, punishing them is often difficult due to the speed at which they can move. Projectile oriented characters manage to keep opponents at bay easily with their now much harder to dodge projectiles, and if you somehow manage to close in, close combat is now a lot easier for these usually slower fighters, as punishing them is now a lot harder. This close combat also applies to heavies, who not only become harder to punish, but also harder to edge guard due to the online.

Characters that rely heavily on combos like sheik are immediately brought to the opposite end of the tier list, because combos are extremely hard to pull off online. This makes them extremely weak.

Finally, Sonic. What do you do in a game where you've already got fast characters, but need to add another totally oriented around speed? Well, make him faster is what Sakurai thought. Sadly, this makes sonic practically invincible online nowadays, due to the fact that catching up to him is nearly impossible and that he's always going to be faster than you.

In summary, simpler characters like heavies, projectile characters, and fast characters are made better by online due to their disadvantages disappearing due to online, while more technical characters have a tendency to become worse online, due to the more technical parts of their kit becoming useless online.

How to make the online experience better

Sadly, for players that use a more reactionary type of gameplay, online will never be perfect for you until Nintendo decides to improve it themselves. The best option is to go into training mode or to play against a level 7 or 8 CPU, as they aren't too perfect and play more like actual players compared to level 9 CPU's. However, if your style of gameplay isn't hampered by online, then here are a few tips:

Obviously, getting an ethernet cable and using a wired connection is always the best option. However, if you have difficulty getting one or placing one where your switch is isn't possible, then here are some tips:

• If your internet has several options, like a 5Ghz and another option, try choose the 5Ghz
• Make sure you're as close to the source of your internet as possible
• Finally, if those don't work, attempt to disconnect all the devices not currently being used from the internet.
• In tournaments, always enter the one in your own region to get the best connection possible.

This is my attempt at explaining the online, I hope people like it.

If this wasn't very helpful, here's a video by Jayden6202:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij8glnfJsZ4

That's all from me, have fun with the demon king!