Cornstalk
Smash Journeyman
DISCLAIMER:
I don't know any of the actual math going on behind the scenes in the game. All of this information is based on in game testing with standard (no equipment) characters as the base for what has changed played on a cartridge of Smash 3DS on a 3DS. This topic is specifically about Attack, Defense, and Speed being altered. Special effects (ex: meander, sprinter, jump height changes, etc) will NOT be covered in this topic.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Damage:
The % of damage the move deals
Launch Power vs Weight:
How far the attack will send an opponent when hit. How the damage of the attack interacts with launch power is still unclear.
Vectoring:
The ability to resist launch power when hit (see Strong Bad's post)
Training Mode:
Damage Calculations:
There is definitely a diminished effect. Bowser's F-smash increased by 1% damage pretty consistently from 0 to 80 for every 6 points, going from 23 to 36 (increase of 13, 80 / 5 = ~13). Going all the way up to +151 attack, the damage is a 42.(decimal unknown) that is more inclined to round up to 43. For an extra +71 in attack past 80, damage has only increased by 6-7%. Exactly how the drop off in returns arcs I'm not sure at the moment. (Partially because I'm terrible at that kind of math, and partially because not seeing the decimal values makes this quite challenging to get exact numbers)
So without an exact formula to give you, I can give you an approximate number to play with for damage against an opponent with negative defense or you using positive attack:
1 + {0.0072 * [ (positive attack) or (negative defense as a positive number) ]
So for Sonic to see a guaranteed 1% increase on his uncharged F-smash (base 14%), he'd need roughly +10 to attack or his opponent to have -10 to defense. There is a little wiggle room, as even as low as a +7 or 8 may see it alternate between 14 and 15%.
(1 + [0.0072 * 10]) * 14 = 15.008
The calculations for defense and attack are handled separately, so the bonus for attack and the bonus for hitting negative defense appear to be multiplied together. In a +50 attack vs -50 defense scenario with Bowser, the uncharged F-smash did 44-45 damage.
Using the multiplier above:
The mathematical result is off by about 2% to the in game result, which implies a few more decimals going on behind the scenes that I can't account for. My estimated multiplier also aims towards 80+, which would make it a little too low because of the diminishing arch to pin point calculate lower values like 50. But being within 1-2% should at least give you a good approximation of what you're going for with equipment use.
ATTACK
As far as I can tell, changing Attack primarily influences your ability to wrack up damage. Multi-hit moves are affected the least. This is because (I believe) a hit will always do a minimum of 1% damage. So attacks like Bowser's standard Up-B (whirling fortress) and most rapid jabs won't even see the penalty or bonus until the final hit of the move.
At this time it is unclear if Attack has any effect on Launch Power at all. If it does, then it is minor compared to what Defense does.
Decreasing Attack changes launch power exactly the same as the targeting increasing defense:
Decreasing Attack suffers a bigger damage penalty than the target increasing Defense:
Increasing Attack effects launch power differently than lowering Defense:
DEFENSE
Defense appears to have more of an impact on how easily the wearer is launched, either by increasing weight or reducing incoming launch power, then actually stopping damage. The effect of negative numbers in defense can be seen just above where attack damage was the same, but the negative defense caused a much lower KO% then an equivalent attack boost, implying that weight was decreased or incoming launching power was boosted.
When defense is increased:
Defense is problematic because it directly changes how easy it is to launch a player. With the right equipment, a character can keep attack and speed within +/- 5 while achieving a defense over 30. Even based on limited testing, this implies an extra 10-20% will be required for same situation KO's compared to standard characters. Because of the small damage reduction, this also means 1-3 extra hits to achieve the new higher KO%. Stacking attack to try and counter this will only really eliminate the need for the extra hits, as attack of equal value to defense still favors defense's resistance to being launched.
More info to come, as my next project will be testing defense values on lighter characters. Though at this time I suspect that every character will see a 1% change in their KO percent for every +/- 6 points in defense.
SPEED
Speed Changes:
Falling Speed may be affected and thus is the result of surviving top KO's a little better, but I can't confirm this right now.
While speed does influence how easily you are KO'd off the top of the screen, the effect is actually pretty small. Bowser with +138 in speed took an extra 8% to kill from the very bottom of regular Tomodachi Life. Roll that back to a more reasonable +50-60 and you're only living by an extra 3-5% off the top compared to standard.
Speed does NOT affect attack animations. Sorry, no Dragon Ball Z style super fast jabs. This includes Up-B recoveries. Bowser and DK get no extra distance with their Up-B's vertically or horizontally. Luigi's Over-B and Up-B still cover the same distances.
Does speed change vectoring?
Vertically - No, or at least not significantly enough to be noticeable.
Horizontally - Maybe. Initial experiments point to yes, but until I'm able to consistently duplicate the results I won't commit to anything.
THOUGHTS ON COMPETITIVE USE
BLIND PICK vs CUSTOM SETS
In the event of a blind pick, once both players have chosen, they should show each other the specific custom slot they plan to use BEFORE linking together for a battle. Once they are at character select screen, each player should confirm all the way to the training lobby with the other witnessing it to ensure no last minute shenanigans like a switch to a high defense custom.
This is, of course, completely unneeded if all players are good sports and honorable competitors. Though it never hurts to have the rule in place just in case you get that one guy...
SETTING LIMITS
Because of the randomness of equipment, not everyone will have access to the same parts. This isn't going to have a huge impact on the game, as it takes at least 6 points + or - to see a noticeable amount of change. Most people should be able to get relatively close with even a minor investment in single player modes (anyone going for customs will have an abundance of parts already).
DEFENSE:
Negative limit: None (if they want to play risky and die much sooner, let em!)
Positive limit: +5
Faster games: No defense parts allowed.
Defense has a serious impact on how easily characters are KO'd. If you allow players to increase their attack and cancel out the negative defense effect, up to +5 should be safe, as it will only change KO% by maybe 3% i the most extreme circumstances.
ATTACK:
Negative Limit: None
Positive Limit: +30 with defense parts allowed, +20 with no defense parts allowed
Because negative attack doesn't hurt your launch power as much as you'd expect, characters that have sacrificed attack for speed should only need a few extra hits compared to standard to get a KO. At the same time, they'll recover a little easier and be able to maneuver better as well. (in theory a character like Ganon could actually show a lot of potential from this!)
Attack damage does wrack up fairly quickly if defense is kept in check, so exceeding +40 can lead to some stupidly early KO's, particularly from someone like Bowser. With no defensive parts allowed, anyone using +attack will also have -defense, which will mean very early KO's as well. Great for speeding up matches, but even at these low numbers could result in some very wonky early KO's.
SPEED:
Negative Limit: Unclear
Positive Limit: +40
Slowing yourself down is always going to be a bad thing. Recovering and approaching become much harder.
On the flip side, speed changes so much of how characters move that extreme changes could have negative impact on gameplay because the few reliable combos and follow ups could completely break. At very high speeds, edgeguarding is almost nonexistent for how fast characters return to the stage.
Increasing speed helps you approach, which should speed up the fights or at very least allow slower characters a window of viability. It also helps you recover, though most recoveries are so good anyway, the impact from this is much less dire then you'd probably expect. Slow characters will enjoy it, while the already fast characters will probably ignore it or even give it up for more attack.
With jump height being a factor too, some characters may not want to have their short hop end up going too high.
So there you have a it. My quick and dirty results from a little time testing equipment values. I'm not sure how much time I'll have to continue working on this, but hopefully what I provided can be of some value.
I don't know any of the actual math going on behind the scenes in the game. All of this information is based on in game testing with standard (no equipment) characters as the base for what has changed played on a cartridge of Smash 3DS on a 3DS. This topic is specifically about Attack, Defense, and Speed being altered. Special effects (ex: meander, sprinter, jump height changes, etc) will NOT be covered in this topic.
GENERAL INFORMATION
Damage:
The % of damage the move deals
Launch Power vs Weight:
How far the attack will send an opponent when hit. How the damage of the attack interacts with launch power is still unclear.
Vectoring:
The ability to resist launch power when hit (see Strong Bad's post)
Training Mode:
- Used for all the tests with Bowser vs Bowser on Omega Pac-Man stage
- Does NOT appear to account for the Rage effect (attackers damage % has no impact on launch power)
- Has consistent damage for all moves (no reduced 'stale' effect from repeated use)
- Level 1 AI in training will not use vectoring
Damage Calculations:
- Moves with multiple hits keep track of decimals for the full move (ex: Bowser's Jab 1st hit 6%, 2nd hit 8%, both connecting 15%, so there was enough of a decimal between both hits to total 1% more between them)
- Uncharged smashes used repeatedly tracked decimal value (ex: uses 1-3 36%, 4th use 37%)
- KO'ing or manually resetting the damage in training mode causes smash decimal value tracking to start over, sometimes making estimating decimal values difficult (repeated hits without KO/reset are required)
- Percentages listed from here on do not account for decimal values, so always assume you may see a 1% variation in the same scenario from time to time
There is definitely a diminished effect. Bowser's F-smash increased by 1% damage pretty consistently from 0 to 80 for every 6 points, going from 23 to 36 (increase of 13, 80 / 5 = ~13). Going all the way up to +151 attack, the damage is a 42.(decimal unknown) that is more inclined to round up to 43. For an extra +71 in attack past 80, damage has only increased by 6-7%. Exactly how the drop off in returns arcs I'm not sure at the moment. (Partially because I'm terrible at that kind of math, and partially because not seeing the decimal values makes this quite challenging to get exact numbers)
So without an exact formula to give you, I can give you an approximate number to play with for damage against an opponent with negative defense or you using positive attack:
1 + {0.0072 * [ (positive attack) or (negative defense as a positive number) ]
So for Sonic to see a guaranteed 1% increase on his uncharged F-smash (base 14%), he'd need roughly +10 to attack or his opponent to have -10 to defense. There is a little wiggle room, as even as low as a +7 or 8 may see it alternate between 14 and 15%.
(1 + [0.0072 * 10]) * 14 = 15.008
The calculations for defense and attack are handled separately, so the bonus for attack and the bonus for hitting negative defense appear to be multiplied together. In a +50 attack vs -50 defense scenario with Bowser, the uncharged F-smash did 44-45 damage.
Using the multiplier above:
- 0.0072 * 50 = 0.36
- 1 + 0.36 = 1.36
- 1.36 * 1.36 = 1.8496 (one is the +50 attack value, one is the -50 defense value, both are calculated the same with negatives turned to positives, and then multiplied together)
- 1.8496 * 23 = 42.54
The mathematical result is off by about 2% to the in game result, which implies a few more decimals going on behind the scenes that I can't account for. My estimated multiplier also aims towards 80+, which would make it a little too low because of the diminishing arch to pin point calculate lower values like 50. But being within 1-2% should at least give you a good approximation of what you're going for with equipment use.
ATTACK
As far as I can tell, changing Attack primarily influences your ability to wrack up damage. Multi-hit moves are affected the least. This is because (I believe) a hit will always do a minimum of 1% damage. So attacks like Bowser's standard Up-B (whirling fortress) and most rapid jabs won't even see the penalty or bonus until the final hit of the move.
At this time it is unclear if Attack has any effect on Launch Power at all. If it does, then it is minor compared to what Defense does.
Decreasing Attack changes launch power exactly the same as the targeting increasing defense:
- Defending Bowser with +40 defense was KO'd from center stage by a standard Bowser at 96%
- Attacking Bowser with -40 Attack KO'd a standard Bowser at 96%
Decreasing Attack suffers a bigger damage penalty than the target increasing Defense:
- Defending Bowser with +40 defense took 22% from a standard Bowser F-smash
- Attack Bowser with -40 attack dealt 19% to a standard Bowser with F-smash
- Despite the lower damage dealt for the negative attack, these two values KO at the same % in the same scenario
- Defending Bowser with -85 defense took 37% damage from a standard Bowser F-smash
- Attacking Bowser with +85 attack dealt 37% damage to a standard Bowswer with F-smash
Increasing Attack effects launch power differently than lowering Defense:
- Defending Bowser with -85 defense was KO'd at 56% (93% after hit) from a standard Bowser F-smash
- Attacking Bowser with +85 attack KO'd a standard Bowser at 72% (109% after hit) with F-smash
DEFENSE
Defense appears to have more of an impact on how easily the wearer is launched, either by increasing weight or reducing incoming launch power, then actually stopping damage. The effect of negative numbers in defense can be seen just above where attack damage was the same, but the negative defense caused a much lower KO% then an equivalent attack boost, implying that weight was decreased or incoming launching power was boosted.
When defense is increased:
- Damage taken is barely changed (+40 defense only reduced damage taken by Bowser's F-smash by 1%!)
- Standard Bowser F-smash KO'd a standard Bowser at 83% (106% after hit)
- Standard Bowser F-smash KO'd +40 Defense Bowser at 97% (119% after hit)
Defense is problematic because it directly changes how easy it is to launch a player. With the right equipment, a character can keep attack and speed within +/- 5 while achieving a defense over 30. Even based on limited testing, this implies an extra 10-20% will be required for same situation KO's compared to standard characters. Because of the small damage reduction, this also means 1-3 extra hits to achieve the new higher KO%. Stacking attack to try and counter this will only really eliminate the need for the extra hits, as attack of equal value to defense still favors defense's resistance to being launched.
More info to come, as my next project will be testing defense values on lighter characters. Though at this time I suspect that every character will see a 1% change in their KO percent for every +/- 6 points in defense.
SPEED
Speed Changes:
- Jump Height
- Walking
- Running
- Horizontal Air movement
- Fast Falling
- Landing Lag
- How easily you are KO'd off the top
Falling Speed may be affected and thus is the result of surviving top KO's a little better, but I can't confirm this right now.
While speed does influence how easily you are KO'd off the top of the screen, the effect is actually pretty small. Bowser with +138 in speed took an extra 8% to kill from the very bottom of regular Tomodachi Life. Roll that back to a more reasonable +50-60 and you're only living by an extra 3-5% off the top compared to standard.
Speed does NOT affect attack animations. Sorry, no Dragon Ball Z style super fast jabs. This includes Up-B recoveries. Bowser and DK get no extra distance with their Up-B's vertically or horizontally. Luigi's Over-B and Up-B still cover the same distances.
Does speed change vectoring?
Vertically - No, or at least not significantly enough to be noticeable.
Horizontally - Maybe. Initial experiments point to yes, but until I'm able to consistently duplicate the results I won't commit to anything.
THOUGHTS ON COMPETITIVE USE
BLIND PICK vs CUSTOM SETS
In the event of a blind pick, once both players have chosen, they should show each other the specific custom slot they plan to use BEFORE linking together for a battle. Once they are at character select screen, each player should confirm all the way to the training lobby with the other witnessing it to ensure no last minute shenanigans like a switch to a high defense custom.
This is, of course, completely unneeded if all players are good sports and honorable competitors. Though it never hurts to have the rule in place just in case you get that one guy...
SETTING LIMITS
Because of the randomness of equipment, not everyone will have access to the same parts. This isn't going to have a huge impact on the game, as it takes at least 6 points + or - to see a noticeable amount of change. Most people should be able to get relatively close with even a minor investment in single player modes (anyone going for customs will have an abundance of parts already).
DEFENSE:
Negative limit: None (if they want to play risky and die much sooner, let em!)
Positive limit: +5
Faster games: No defense parts allowed.
Defense has a serious impact on how easily characters are KO'd. If you allow players to increase their attack and cancel out the negative defense effect, up to +5 should be safe, as it will only change KO% by maybe 3% i the most extreme circumstances.
ATTACK:
Negative Limit: None
Positive Limit: +30 with defense parts allowed, +20 with no defense parts allowed
Because negative attack doesn't hurt your launch power as much as you'd expect, characters that have sacrificed attack for speed should only need a few extra hits compared to standard to get a KO. At the same time, they'll recover a little easier and be able to maneuver better as well. (in theory a character like Ganon could actually show a lot of potential from this!)
Attack damage does wrack up fairly quickly if defense is kept in check, so exceeding +40 can lead to some stupidly early KO's, particularly from someone like Bowser. With no defensive parts allowed, anyone using +attack will also have -defense, which will mean very early KO's as well. Great for speeding up matches, but even at these low numbers could result in some very wonky early KO's.
SPEED:
Negative Limit: Unclear
Positive Limit: +40
Slowing yourself down is always going to be a bad thing. Recovering and approaching become much harder.
On the flip side, speed changes so much of how characters move that extreme changes could have negative impact on gameplay because the few reliable combos and follow ups could completely break. At very high speeds, edgeguarding is almost nonexistent for how fast characters return to the stage.
Increasing speed helps you approach, which should speed up the fights or at very least allow slower characters a window of viability. It also helps you recover, though most recoveries are so good anyway, the impact from this is much less dire then you'd probably expect. Slow characters will enjoy it, while the already fast characters will probably ignore it or even give it up for more attack.
With jump height being a factor too, some characters may not want to have their short hop end up going too high.
So there you have a it. My quick and dirty results from a little time testing equipment values. I'm not sure how much time I'll have to continue working on this, but hopefully what I provided can be of some value.
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