I have been playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate non-stop during the weekend, easily playing more than 100 matches since it’s debut. However, there’s one aspect of the game that eludes myself and many others and that is how the GSP works and the requirements to unlock and maintain Elite Smash mode. Now, I made a video that tried to help the community, however upon reading the comments, I quickly realized that I was misinformed on the inner working of the GSP. With the help of the people replying, I think I’ve figured out how this whole system works.
So to start, there is not set number of GSP that you have to achieve to unlock Elite Smash. Global Smash Power (GSP) is the player’s rank number which based on the number of people they’ve outscored instead of the number of people better than them. This means their number will increase as they get better. As some of you may have noticed, your GSP goes up or down even when you’re not online. It’s an ever evolving ranking system, which is why it is difficult to have a set number. Now, when it comes to unlocking the Elite Smash mode, here’s how I understand it. Big shoutout to イヤンックIyankku in my comment section who, instead of destroying me, decided to leave tips on how it all works:
*Note: The terms used below- GSP and FFA- mean “Global Smash Power” and “Free-for-All,” respectively. FFA is the term being used by the competitive community to refer to casual matches that tend to have four players and items on. This can also mean team matches, matches with hazard-enabled stages, etc. It’s essentially a blanket term for a non-competitve 1v1 + no items match of any kind. As a side note, please remember some players don’t use 3-stock, so keep that in mind just as an aside.
1. Remember that GSP is how many players are below you, so it most likely goes by a specific top percentage of players. That number tends to hover above 500k but it can be lower or higher, it depends solely on how good the players are on that character, and basically, their popularity as well(because this will affect how many people play them, so unpopular characters should tend to have lower GSP minimums for Elite than more often-played ones).
2. You CAN lose access to Elite. Elite shows up FOR the character that you have access to it on AS LONG AS YOU MEET THE GSP REQUIREMENT. If you lose a few battles and drop below the necessary GSP, you will no longer have access. If you lose access to Elite on all characters, the mode will not show up at all(as far as I know; I could be wrong about this detail). Characters you cannot use will be greyed out on the selection screen. Each character must have access met individually.
3. You CAN use Elite mode with Background Match-Making, so don’t sweat it if you think it’s any different for it.
4. You SHOULD notice when you have it. It’s not hidden anywhere or anything, you get a notification like the one in the video, then your buttons for joining a match have a distinct icon with a badge in the top right corner. If you have Elite, you’ll know.
5. Elite Smash also isn’t technically any different than regular online Quickplay. Aside from the GSP gate to have access to it and the strictness of a per-character availability, the mode is just as fluid in rules as any other. However, as most serious players will all be queuing up with roughly the same rules(especially as the meta develops to the standard, which right now is 3-stock 5- or 7-minutes) you can expect to be playing mostly serious 1v1s.
This isn’t guaranteed, however, so don’t be surprised if you still see FFAs or an items match, etc. Just do your part by enabling your rules preference when you play Elite! Lastly, some info on how GSP works for your reference. If I miss anything or say anything false here, please let me know so I can edit my comment! GSP is essentially a volatile ranking based solely on other players. The number represents how many players are currently BELOW you in skill, so higher is better.
Let’s say you have a GSP of 100,000. That means you’re essentially the 100,101st player in skill on that character. Obviously this isn’t a 100% concrete rank as it changes every match, and more importantly: GSP will most likely be changing a bit as new players start playing while the game launches.
In addition to this is another detail I wanted to mention, which is that your GSP will obviously change by itself as well. This may be mostly due to new players and not be so noticeable in the future but right now don’t be surprised if you come back after a few minutes and notice your GSP has changed.
I took a bathroom break earlier today and my Richter GSP went from 487k to 500k. It happens, so just keep that in mind, and don’t sweat it if you’re suddenly lower than you left off on- it just means you have to keep up with how good players are getting, so do your best!
Once again, Big shoutout to イヤンックIyankku for the insight into all of this!
So in other words, depending on how well people use your main, it will determine the requirement to unlock and maintain Elite Smash Mode. Essential from my understanding, each character has a different GSP requirement based on how the good players are with that character I think! So for example, let’s say I main Mario and you main Cloud, if a lot of people use Mario really well, the threshold for elite will be different than for those people that use Cloud and the requirement is based on how well people use that character. I hope I explained it well.
It’s always worth noting that you may have Elite Smash today, but if many people start playing your character and get really good at it and you yourself haven’t been performing well, you may lose your Elite Smash privileges. Something to keep in mind!
