Some players have been complaining that the last installment in the series was made a bit too streamlined and seemingly optimized for newcomers who weren’t aware of the game’s intricate mechanics, but others welcomed those changes claiming that the games have always been in need of some accessibility.
At the same time, it’s important to remember how the previous games in the franchise were played – it was pretty typical to exclude certain stages and characters because they were deemed unbalanced, and players in general found different ways to make the game feel “right” according to their own requirements and interests.
In the end, “Super Smash Bros 4” really did do certain things which relieved those issues, but it will take a while for the developers to truly find the right balance and make things right.
This is one of the problems with competitive titles like this one in general – balancing them is a constant game of cat and mouse between the developer and fans, as players keep discovering new strategies that work better than others, while developers work hard to plug those holes and make the game more balanced. In turn, players find something new that works which raises a few eyebrows, and the whole process starts all over again. It would be interesting to see how things work out in the long run for this particular game.