Balanced Brawl Public Preview *GENESIS UPDATE*

[Lord Viper]

☆ I'm currently trying this and I will say I like this idea already. Though the unrestricted camra is not on the code list but oh well. =P ☆

 

[Shadow 111]

wow, i like this idea A LOT. i don't see what tournaments would really host this game though... most would probably just stick with vBrawl. =/

 

[Yingyay]

If you guys want this to be taken seriously then fix Ike's sideB. He should be superman with a club you know, other than that I hope you guys succeed. This sounds like a cool idea and a alternative to vBrawl and Brawl+




*Yingyay Patiently waits until he has time and resources to make Brawl -*

 

[Thinkaman]

wait, you want to balance the game with as least changes as possible, but you give ike something awkward as this????

Ike, and to some extent Luigi's faster fireballs, were a special case.

Both characters had a gaping weakness that nothing in their moveset let them truly overcome. (Look at how Olimar and Snake have tools to deal with their similar massive weaknesses.) Ike had a mobility problem, and Luigi had an approach problem.

Both Ike and Luigi are already very good in matchups where their weakness is not a large factor, because they already have INCREDIBLE strengths other characters would die for! If we buffed them further to overcome their hard matchups, their easy matchups would become very biased. Unlike other characters, who we could buff strengths on, Ike and Luigi needed their weaknesses addressed.

But if we can't change character speed or movement, how can we fix Ike? Ampharos proposed Quick Draw as the solution to Ike very early on, actually in our very first discussion. We continued to tweak the lag change as we tested more and more, and most people now consider Ike one of the most naturally changed characters. It's a big deal and changes him a lot, no doubt about it... but it fits into his existing playstyle just right, like a perfect Tetris piece.

I hear Mr. Doom is terrifying with it though. :D

 

[Revven]

wow, i like this idea A LOT. i don't see what tournaments would really host this game though... most would probably just stick with vBrawl. =/

The problem is the stigma with hacking a game. Going through Brawl+, we had to deal a lot with it. There will be loads of arguments on the way, on what needs to be changed, what doesn't work and how to fix it, why things can't be like this and most importantly, you will get comments like "I HATE THIS IDEA BECAUSE IT WILL NEVER BECOME STANDARD BECAUSE IT'S A HACK". Of course Brawl+ won't be a standard for Brawl, but BBrawl may also not have the same chance either because it requires everyone to have a softmodded Wii. And there are still people touchy on softmodding their Wiis, it's not going to be easy to convince those people otherwise.

That is why this is going to be tough for you guys, so have fun with it (as it IS fun messing with this stuff I'm sure ).

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Have you guys done testing with Ike's Quick Draw in real matches? This was one of our most carefully monitored changes as well as one of the earliest changes we implemented, and it really does fix exactly what Ike needs fixed. The thing is, in standard Brawl, Ike is "good" except for two issues. He has pretty bad approach options that make him too easy to keep out with some characters, and his recovery is quite bad in a way that just promotes skewed matchups. The Quick Draw changes just pinpoint these issues, but other than on laggy WiFi, they don't really change the fundamentals of Ike as a slow, powerful, huge range character. Spacing fairs and jabs still matters way more to Ike than Quick Draw does; Quick Draw is just his way of evening the field.

Try stuff like full hop to Quick Draw to go over projectile spam. It really does feel very natural, and it's Ike's dream come true.

 

[Anth0ny]

****.

THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. This look's awesome. I'm going to download it right now and probably bring it to some casuals I'll be attending in the near future.

 

[DaiAndOh]

It's an interesting project, and probably a worthy one too. But it just has bad timing and niche issues really.

Mostly because those who like Brawl will still to Brawl and most who don't like it want something more different such as B+ or Melee. Still, best of luck.

And I also think there are some good ideas here that can transition over to B+.

 

[Likeness101]

Amazing Ampharos, along with everybody else, you never cease to amaze me.

 

[tsunami70875]

sweet. now we just need everyone to accept it.
the OP look pretty sexy as well

 

[Deleted member]

I'm sure you've done your testing, but so did we. it was just not natural for Ike to have this kind of recovery.

(I was the one who made the original Ike change, and even though it was cool for a week, it really had to go)

 

[Steeler]

for those of us that are normal Brawlers but really like the idea of this project (which was executed well):

start playing this with your friends at smashfests. get comfortable with the changes. soon you'll get accustomed to switching between normal Brawl and BBrawl (is that the nickname we'll use? lol). just introduce your friends gradually to it. if people like it, then eventually you can start holding side tournaments for it. and heck, maybe it'll even become more popular within your area than normal Brawl.

don't worry about "oh, but this is a hack, i really really like it and the idea of it, but it'll never get popular enough, yadda yadda yadda"

it's really not that difficult to get used to. so just play it on the side at first and gradually introduce your friends to it. i'm sure lots of people will like it, with some minor complaints (i think quick draw is too fast as well lol)

if people like it, people will play it. and i think lots of people, including influential players, will like it.

 

[ffdgh]

lol cool ill give in to this

the only 3 things imo that needs atweak is peach's vegetables(no stale move)
her throws and u air
but what ever, ill give this a go right now, woot for ganon improvements and falcon improvements, and for mario actually being balanced

 

[Zig-Zag!]

mother****ing kids with their computers

 

[Deleted member]

for those of us that are normal Brawlers but really like the idea of this project (which was executed well):

start playing this with your friends at smashfests. get comfortable with the changes. soon you'll get accustomed to switching between normal Brawl and BBrawl (is that the nickname we'll use? lol). just introduce your friends gradually to it. if people like it, then eventually you can start holding side tournaments for it. and heck, maybe it'll even become more popular within your area than normal Brawl.

don't worry about "oh, but this is a hack, i really really like it and the idea of it, but it'll never get popular enough, yadda yadda yadda"

it's really not that difficult to get used to. so just play it on the side at first and gradually introduce your friends to it. i'm sure lots of people will like it, with some minor complaints (i think quick draw is too fast as well lol)

if people like it, people will play it. and i think lots of people, including influential players, will like it.

there are 2 minor issues (just trying to help you guys out, we've had this too)

1) normal brawl players are probably not gonna look in the workshop without a reason. so I might advise you to think of a way to get people to look here, since right now people just read Brawl+ for this section

2) people are afraid of using hacks because it might crash their system (while this is the safest hack you can think of but w/e). they are not gonna shun from hacking because they don't expect it to become big, but because they are afraid of bricking their wii.
you can't really do anything about this except keep telling them it's safe.

hope you can use this advise

 

[Teh Brettster]

Ike Is Happy For This.

 

[Shadow 111]

The problem is the stigma with hacking a game. Going through Brawl+, we had to deal a lot with it. There will be loads of arguments on the way, on what needs to be changed, what doesn't work and how to fix it, why things can't be like this and most importantly, you will get comments like "I HATE THIS IDEA BECAUSE IT WILL NEVER BECOME STANDARD BECAUSE IT'S A HACK". Of course Brawl+ won't be a standard for Brawl, but BBrawl may also not have the same chance either because it requires everyone to have a softmodded Wii. And there are still people touchy on softmodding their Wiis, it's not going to be easy to convince those people otherwise.

That is why this is going to be tough for you guys, so have fun with it (as it IS fun messing with this stuff I'm sure ).

thank you, fellow FMA fan.
yeah, this is true... hopefully some TOs in my area will start hosting this though... maybe as a side event or something, at least. i would like it to become more popular than vbrawl, but it's highly unlikely.

 

[Steeler]

@paprika

yeah, those are two good points. i've told my pt compadres about this and have written an entry on my unpopular AiB blog to do my part lol.

however, with the rapidly increasing amount of hacked wii's for things like texture hacks, i don't think #2 is as big of a problem as it used to be when the B+ kids were getting started.

@shadow

i feel the exact same way. i think the tournament scene would be better if this were the standard. it would take a long while for that to happen, but for now, just let people play this for themselves. if it has enough support, TO's would be foolish to not at least host side tourneys. so tell your friends about this! get the word out!!

 

[Delta Z]

I'm all for what you guys are doing. Balancing characters without making any changes to the game's physics would (theoretically) make it a lot easier to adjust to than Brawl+. I guess the biggest roadblock is still the fact that it's a hack, which makes it hard to get working and hard to convince people to use.

Kinda makes me wish Nintendo was able to balance the game with downloadable patches or something fully legit, you know? You can't blame the guys too much for a lot of the lack of balance, because they never saw the techs and stuff we find coming.

And a couple ideas for you guys. Maybe slightly decrease the damage and knockback of most of Marth's attacks? And I know you're against changing hitboxes, but could you shrink the horizontal range of Snake's utilt & ftilt a little? I mean, you already reduced the knockback, but the range on them just seems unneccesarily big.

 

[ffdgh]

and the good thing is i can use my own textures i made

lol the wii wiil crash only if the person using the mods dont follow the instructions.

use banner bomb from wii brew if u wanna haxor.

 

[Lixivium]

Lucas needs more buffs

I don't know why you changed Ganon and Pokemon Trainer, they were already broken

 

[adumbrodeus]

On the issue of Ganondorf...

Going with the theme that if Ganondorf gets inside, he just murders you, could we make warlock punch usable?

I'm not talking about you can randomly throw it out, I'm talking about something more akin to rest, where if your opponent makes a large enough mistake you can use it or true combo into it, because honestly having a "rest-like" move fits very well into Ganondorf's playstyle.I don't mean frame 1, over a second cool-down, but maybe possible to get off a successful techchase or something.


I love Ike's new quickdraw.

 

[Thinkaman]

And a couple ideas for you guys. Maybe slightly decrease the damage and knockback of most of Marth's attacks? And I know you're against changing hitboxes, but could you shrink the horizontal range of Snake's utilt & ftilt a little? I mean, you already reduced the knockback, but the range on them just seems unneccesarily big.

Marth is already perfectly in line with our "target" of Diddy; some people have actually wanted Marth buffed if you can believe that. (Thanks ren, lol.) Marth does very well in all testing sessions, but his best matchups are no longer as strongly in his favor. (Especially Ness/Lucas!)

The goal with not changing hitboxes or attack timings is that it makes playing this and standard Brawl totally interchangable; the only thing you have to "learn" is to be aware of the few necessary big changes on a couple of characters, like Ike or Sonic. It's much harder to pick up and transition to if you have to play with new hitboxes to get a feel for how they are changed... no piece of paper can teach people that, and it's a problem when you go back to regular Brawl and it's different yet again.

 

[Crystanium]

Everything is looking good for the characters I use. Samus, Zero Suit Samus, Pit, and Diddy Kong. I would definitely hack my Wii just to play this. As you said, AlphaZealot, there isn't a huge transition like you would have from Brawl to Brawl+. So, do we call this "Brawl Balanced"? I like this.

 

[distructo91]

omaigod i'm gonna get this. I need my SD reader T_T

 

[Pink Link]

WTH is this?! D:<
Link doesn't need better attacks and all that ****
HE NEEDS A FRIGGIN RECOVERY!!!!

 

[uhmuzing]

I like this. It really does look like it'll balance Brawl out; very neat!

 

[ffdgh]

hmm where do i place the gct file on my sd card?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

WTH is this?! D:<
Link doesn't need better attacks and all that ****
HE NEEDS A FRIGGIN RECOVERY!!!!

Link's new arrows make most other recoveries as bad as his; they are too pro at gimping.

I should also just put it this way. With what we've given him, Link needs that recovery weakness to be balanced. Not EVERY character can have a good recovery, and given how much else Link has going for him, we've seen this version of Link to work out fine.

Also, with the new more liberal stage list, you can CP walk-off stages! Try to gimp Link on Onett or Mushroomy Kingdom 1-1; just try it!

 

[Thinkaman]

hmm where do i place the gct file on my sd card?

In a folder named "codes" works. You can also use a directory "data/gecko/codes" if you want...

 

[ffdgh]

In a folder named "codes" works. You can also use a directory "data/gecko/codes" if you want...

ahh kk thx lol. Ill give this a shot now

 

[JGALT]

I've been testing this since early on, and it really is legit. The project makes a lot of characters fun, who were otherwise just miserable to play. I could honestly see this becoming a tourney standard.

But... that's not what I came to this thread to do. I have to reveal what I know. *devilish grin*

Alright, for way fun times, Download BBrawl, and play a match with the Stopwatch item on. Falcon Dittos and anything with Wolf is sure to be bags of hilarious. Double bonus points if you go to Space Pillar with the black guy on (hold X or something).

Also... I'll let you in on a big secret that they don't want leaked...
In previous versions...

Samus had ICE MISSILES!!!

They were removed in the final version for reasons that are yet unclear to JGALT. Imagine... ICE MISSILES. The super missile would hit, and send a frozen opponent flying. It was awesome, and actually useful, because you could chase people out of the ice, because it flew slower than unfrozen knock back. Boom, icemissile, they pop out, and you downspike them. Or maybe charge your charge shot. Or hit them with the tether. There were options, it was amazing.
AND THEY SHOULD BE BROUGHT BACK TO THE FINAL VERSION

 

[Shell]

Kinda makes me wish Nintendo was able to balance the game with downloadable patches or something fully legit, you know? You can't blame the guys too much for a lot of the lack of balance, because they never saw the techs and stuff we find coming

Lulzz. Brawl is not so tech-heavy that the developers couldn't have predicted how good someone would be. MK is just an amazing character. Just look at his killing ability, gimping ability, recovery, speed, etc. and it's not hard to see. Look at Snake. You give someone projectiles like that and incredible tilts and it's not hard to predict he'll be raep. Let's not kid ourselves, Sakurai was either deliberately ignorant or didn't care.

I don't want to side-track this thread, though. I will say that I hope this project eventually replaces Brawl and is able to co-exist with Brawl+ (for those who want a balance of offense and defense, not just balanced characters).

Good luck.

 

[Thinkaman]

WTH is this?! D:<
Link doesn't need better attacks and all that ****
HE NEEDS A FRIGGIN RECOVERY!!!!

What Ampharos said; Link's recovery is now balanced by his strengths, not unlike Olimar.

Instead of making all the characters the same by eliminating weaknesses, we focuses on further improving strengths wherever possible. I think you will find the results pleasing to play with.

And seriously... the arrows are amazing. JGALT said he might consider Link the best in the game due to arrows.

Also, with the new more liberal stage list, you can CP walk-off stages! Try to gimp Link on Onett or Mushroomy Kingdom 1-1; just try it!

I wanted to add something about this. At first, I thought Ampharos and his desire to make crazy stages more playable was wacky and somewhat of an unimportant diversion. Then in playtesting we started playing on the stages... and something strange happened.

...they were fun.

Not just fun, but interesting, in a good way:

Mushroomy Kingdom 1-1 is the most shocking change, it's VERY playable now... it's Rainbow Cruise for ground characters, EXACTLY. I was soooo shocked that this stage turned out not only decent, but legit.

Bridge of Eldin is good too with no walkoff abuse, but almost too good for some characters like Link, Olimar, and Falco.

Big Blue is surprisingly decent too when slower, and really fun to play on as Sonic; at this speed, his run matches the speed of the cars exactly!

But most importantly, Wi-Fi training room is one of the greatest, most interesting stages of all time. It's really, really fun. I might post an entire topic about how amazing it is and how to play it later, assuming Ampharos doesn't beat me too it.

 

[FrozenHobo]

i'll check this out later. looks promising. especially like the water change idea.

 

[Cyan_]

This looks awesome. Gonna try it right now.

Ike looks fun.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

This is stupid. Whoever made this OBV got ***** by CG and tilt locks so he's pissy and dec ide to try and make a balanced fighting game this is more fail than brawl+ ****.

 

[FrozenHobo]

This is stupid. Whoever made this OBV got ***** by CG and tilt locks so he's pissy and dec ide to try and make a balanced fighting game this is more fail than brawl+ ****.

ICs still have their cgs.

 

[Thinkaman]

This is stupid. Whoever made this OBV got ***** by CG and tilt locks so he's pissy and dec ide to try and make a balanced fighting game this is more fail than brawl+ ****.

I didn't really feel the need to respond to this, but I think it's funny that I play Jigglypuff, and the only infinite or cg that affects her (Ice Climbers) was the only one left in...

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

This is stupid. Whoever made this OBV got ***** by CG and tilt locks so he's pissy and dec ide to try and make a balanced fighting game this is more fail than brawl+ ****.

We main Mr. Game & Watch and Jigglypuff, the two characters least susceptible to such things. In fact, ICs chaingrabs are about all that work on either of them, and incidentally those are the only things like this left in.