Roster Design-What Should it Look Like?

[SuperBrawler]

Should it be like the normal roster design with characters in boxes? Will characters be organized by series? Will we have to scroll around the roster?

Discuss what the roster design could be like. Anything about roster design really, including:
Look
Organization
Character Placement
And other stuff.

 

[EddyBearr]

Top rows: Include the "original 12" in the top 2 rows.
Inonic: The more "iconic" a character is, the higher up they should go (usually original 12, works together.)
Bottom rows: New characters and "least iconic" characters.
Further left: "More Nintendo."
Further right: "Less Nintendo (artstyle)" and "3rd party."

Longer than it is tall. perhaps 9x5.


Roster prediction aside.

 

[Swift Fox]

Every previous Smash Bros games' roster always look like this:
-Number of rows is larger than columns.
-Pics of charater with their label names
-Lower part of screen shows player's selected character
-1P:Red, 2P:Blue, 3P:Yellow, 4P:Green
-Characters in same series grouped together

Pretty much they and the others in common will be in SSB4's roster screen as well.

Other than that I can't really predict how it will turn out exactly.

 

[AEMehr]

I am actually very into character organization.
The original Smash and Melee had a very similar layout, where franchises were more horizontally aligned (In Melee, the clones were placed next to their original counterpart. Which makes The Legend of Zelda franchise the only exception to that standard in Melee).
Brawl's Roster was more vertically aligned, having characters grouped together by columns.

I really hope this game does something a bit more unique with it's character slot design. Maybe try to mix the ideas together a little bit?
That's what I do with my roster, and I personally think it's kinda neat:

• For starters, it has a Marvel vs Capcom style character positioning (Main / Bigger characters are more towards the center while the secondary / lesser known ones are in the outer columns). I just find it to be something more interesting to look at.
• Right smack in the middle I have all of the characters on the top row from Brawl +Snake because of his status of being the "original" third-party character.
• Characters are still near others from the same franchise or are relatable in someway (Metroid is next to Kid Icarus for being a sister franchise, Golden Sun is nearby because of the song it had on Norfair), (All of the JRPG characters are next to each other while being right next to the Pokémon row), (All of the Mario related characters are on the top), (Legend of Zelda is well known for it's amount of Puzzles, Lip is from a Puzzle franchise), etc..
• When compared to the Starter Roster, it appears as if it slowly grew into the completed one without having characters being jumped all around when somebody new was unlocked (which was something that really bothered me in Brawl).

Those are just some things I'd like to see, but I'm still expecting a pretty generic mostly vertical organized list of slots (Which is essentially what Brawl did).

---
EDIT: Just realized that the starting roster and the completed roster aren't the same version... so uh, just pretend Little Mac is Isaac in the Starter Roster okay?

 

[SuperBrawler]

The Brawl jumping around thing annoyed me too.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

I made this awhile back. I think it will be the normal setup, but I think something like this could be cool as well.

 

[BluePikmin11]

I would imagine the first 9 rows would start with the big 9 franchises in the first E3 trailer. Then, depending on the roster, end with FE, third parties and obscure characters column.

 

[EddyBearr]

Roster prediction aside, what do you guys think of the organization?

Perspective: I tend to group Mario/Wario/Yoshi "together" as one franchise, because they're so tightly related. Donkey Kong has long since abandoned Mario, so not him.

I took a vertical approach.


Roster Patterns:
Yoshi was my hardest to position.
"Tagalongs" next to the main character.
"Similar style" be it art, fighting, or both, can get you close together.
"Kiddish" vs "Serious-looking" is a factor.
Higher up: More "core" to Smash
Further down: Newer to Smash
Further Left: More "Nintendo" [More appealing to kids & families, closer to Mario, etc.)
Further right: More serious
Original 12: all in top 2, except Yoshi. Poor Yoshi. All in first row are original 12, except Wario, who is the epitome of Mario spin-off character.
1st row: Icons, Franchise size (DK is Mario spin off) & relation.
2nd row: Tagalongs, co-stars, Similar fighting style, and Marth (who needed a place.)
3rd row: Villains, edginess, and "Your Choice."
4th row: Innocence, girliness, and Lucario (who needed to be by Mewtwo)
5th row: 100% newcomers (including Mewtwo)
Column 0: You! You're first!
Column 1-2: Mario, Spin-offs, & Retro
Column 3: Donkey Kong & Other 100% Nintendo (Pikmin / Animal Crossing) (I know DK is kinda Rare, but it is "So Nintendo." When you think of Nintendo, a lot of us think of DK immediately.)
Column 4: Pokemon
Column 5: Sakurai (Kirby and Kid Icarus)
Column 6: LoZ
Column 7: Guns and athleticism
Column 8: Swords and "Psy" powers.
Column 9: Basic fighters and 3rd party.
Column 10: You choose to be random.

 

[APC99]

​

This is what I'd like to see happen.​

​

-First row: Mario and it's respective spin-offs (Wario, Mario RPGs and Yoshi)​

-Second row: The two other most popular franchises (Zelda and Pokemon)​

-Third-row: Sakurai's franchises (Kirby, Kid Icarus), swordsmen (Golden Sun, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem, etc.) and Donkey Kong.​

-Fourth row: Intergalactic franchises (Metroid, Star Fox, Pikmin), Retro characters (Don't need to explain.)​

-Fifth row: The original unlockable franchises (F-Zero, EarthBound), casuals (Animal Crossing, Wii Fit, Nintendogs, Brain Age, etc.) and more recent series (Punch-Out!!, Pushmo, Dillon's Rolling Western, etc.)​

-Sixth row: Third-parties, random button and the Miis.​

EDIT: Look closely. Besides the 3rd-parties, each end of each row is the 10 franchises from Smash 64.

 

[BKupa666]

I don't know what the roster design should look like, but I don't believe that the roster size should be affected by what makes for a neat and tidy roster grid; that's secondary to getting in as many solid characters as possible IMO.

With that said, it would be cool to see a non-grid design, just to break the mold a bit.

 

[Al-kīmiyā']

I hate horizontal franchise organization.

Check out a couple of my rosters:

When possible, I tried to put an entire series in one column. I group Captain Falcon with Metroid, because supposedly they're in the same universe. I put Olimar next to Falcon, because he's also a captain! Earthbound people go by Pokemon, because they share a similar aesthetic, and they both have younger protagonists. I tried to have the top row progress in a manner that isn't jarring. So we have Mario - Yoshi - DK / DK - Yoshi - Kirby (I prefer this second version, as Yoshi and Kirby not only have similar abilities, but they both recently had yarn games.) I think DK - Kirby is the worst transition up there, as they are not very similar. But after that, we go from Kirby to another cute guy, Pikachu. They are both brightly colored, so I think that flows well. Pikachu goes to Star Fox, because we are getting more into Sci-Fi territory, thus the subsequent Metroid column (we are also getting more serious in general from left to right.) Samus to Zelda is a hard transition, but they are at least both fairly realistic humanoids. Zelda to Fire Emblem is easy, and Fire Emblem and Kid Icarus also share a similar style relative to most of the other franchises. For the other characters, I just tried to put them next to characters they wouldn't look too weird next to.

 

[AEMehr]

The Brawl jumping around thing annoyed me too.

Yeah.

​

This is what I'd like to see happen.

-First row: Mario and it's respective spin-offs (Wario, Mario RPGs and Yoshi)
-Second row: The two other most popular franchises (Zelda and Pokemon)
-Third-row: Sakurai's franchises (Kirby, Kid Icarus), swordsmen (Golden Sun, Xenoblade, Fire Emblem, etc.) and Donkey Kong.
-Fourth row: Intergalactic franchises (Metroid, Star Fox, Pikmin), Retro characters (Don't need to explain.)
-Fifth row: The original unlockable franchises (F-Zero, EarthBound), casuals (Animal Crossing, Wii Fit, Nintendogs, Brain Age, etc.) and more recent series (Punch-Out!!, Pushmo, Dillon's Rolling Western, etc.)
-Sixth row: Third-parties, random button and the Miis.

EDIT: Look closely. Besides the 3rd-parties, each end of each row is the 10 franchises from Smash 64.

I actually really like the 10 Original franchises on the outside thing, but I woulda just have them in order. But I actually reaaallllly like this.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I guess in terms of roster organization, there's my roster input to reference.

One might question Bowser's position on the roster, considering that he uses the Mushroom symbol, but in a way, it does pretty much follow a chronological order, since Bowser came after Donkey Kong.

 

[SuperBrawler]

I just noticed M&SG added this to the Guidelines and Listings without me asking. Thank you.

 

[Starcutter]

you know, I already have a prediction, don't know if anyone else thought of it, maybe, JUST MAYBE, when you select a character, there isn't a bluish background, it's the color shown on the smash website. like for instance, mario is red, and link's is green. everyone has a different color.

 

[Deleted member]

Minus the character roster itself, I think the design will look something like this.

 

[SuperBrawler]

Idea:
It shows a roster of series icons, and when you select the series icon and tap it, the characters in that series show up around it.

 

[Zzuxon]

Idea:
It shows a roster of series icons, and when you select the series icon and tap it, the characters in that series show up around it.

Oooh, I like that.
I had thought of that before, but only for the DLC characters, if they happen.

 

[BluePikmin11]

Idea:
It shows a roster of series icons, and when you select the series icon and tap it, the characters in that series show up around it.

Could be used as a better way to fit all characters into a small 3DS screen.

 

[SuperBrawler]

I imagine you choose it then the roster expands and the characters appear.

 

[SuperBrawler]

I could make an example the day after tomorrow.