Data Figuring out Stale Move Negation; can anyone help me out?

[Jaxas]

Stale Move Negation​

Currently Known Information​

Spoiler

Questions needing answered​

• What are the reductions in Damage/Knockback for each position and instance in the Stale Move Queue?
  • Damage reductions currently appear to carry over from Melee and Brawl.
    • I will test further in the future, however this will be a huge project assuming it does not carry over.
• How (and when) are multi-hit attacks affected by Stale Move Negation?

Answered Questions​

• Is there Stale Move Negation in Smash 4?
  • Yes, Stale Move Negation is in Smash 4.
• How many moves are in the Stale Move Queue?
  • There are exactly 9 moves in the Stale Move Queue.
• Does Staling only affect Damage or does it also affect Knockback?
  • Stale Move Negation affects Knockback as well as damage.
• Are Stale Moves tracked by the attacking player or the player hit?
  • No surprise, it's tracked by attacking player.
• How does hitting multiple opponents affect Stale Move Negation?
  • When hitting multiple opponents with a single move, the move appears not to degrade before hitting the second opponent, even if one opponent is hit before the 2nd.
  • Hitting two opponents with a single move only adds the move into the Stale Move Queue a single time.
• When are projectiles affected by Stale Move Negation?
  • Projectiles damage percentages appear to be set upon creation, similarly to how it works in Melee and Brawl. If a second projectile is created before the first one hits, it still deals the same amount of damage as it would if the first projectile was never added into the Stale Move Queue. If a third projectile was then used, it would be staled twice (assuming both example projectiles 1 and 2 hit an opponent).

• Are whiffed attacks added to the Stale Move Queue?
  • No, attacks that do not land are not added to the Stale Move Queue.
  • Whiffing attacks does not unstale moves in the Stale Move Queue.
• Are shielded attacks entered into the Stale Move Queue?
  • Yes, attacks that hit an opponent's shield are still placed in the Stale Move Queue.
• Are moves blocked in specific ways entered into the Stale Move Queue?
  • Attacks which hit an invulnerable opponent are not added to the Stale Move Queue.
  • Projectiles which hit Link's Hylian Shield are not added into the Stale Move Queue.
  • Pocketed Projectiles are not added to the Stale Move Queue.
• Are Stale Moves tracked by the attacking player or the player hit?
  • No surprises, it's tracked by attacking player.
• Are there moves that are not subject to Stale Move Decay?
  • Yes, it appears that items are not affected by Stale Move Negation. As such, moves such as Link's 'Bombs' and MegaMan's 'Metal Blade' all deal a set amount of damage every time.
  • Unlike in the previous games, Stale Move Negation applies to Zairs in Smash 4.
• Are attacks that hit non-player hurtboxes entered into the Stale Move Queue?
  • If an attack hits an item with a hurtbox, such as a Crate or Bomb-Omb, it will be added to the Stale Move Queue.
  • If an attack hits an object such as Villager's 'Balloon Trip' Balloons, it will not be added to the Stale Move Queue.
    • I am unaware of any other objects in the game which share this property with Villager's Balloons, however.

Partially Answered Questions​

• What are the requirements for a move to not be entered into the Stale Move Queue, or which moves are not affected by Stale Move Negation?
  • Marked as Partially Answered due to lacking the full cast. (Testing with the US Demo Version)
  • Item-based Attacks
    • Link's 'Bombs'
    • MegaMan's 'Metal Blade'
    • Tree branch left over after Villager's 'Timber'
• Are Reflected or Countered attacks subject to Stale Move Decay?
  • Marked as Partially Answered due to lacking the full cast. (Testing with the US Demo Version)
    
  • Projectiles caught by Villager's 'Pocket' or reflected with Mario's 'Cape' are subject to Stale Move Decay. They appear to deal damage based off of the staleness of the original move, which likely means that the reflectors themselves don't stale, but simply set the reflected damage dealt to a set amount of the original damage dealt.
    
  • No characters in the demo have a counter, and as such I am unable to test this.
• Is there still a Freshness Bonus for moves not in the Stale Move Queue, and if so what is it?
  • Marked as Partially Answered due to lacking exact percentage of Freshness Bonus.
    
  • There is indeed a Freshness Bonus, and it appears to be 1.05% again. I haven't fully tested that yet, but it appears to at least be within the range of (1.04 < X < 1.12).

Original Post​

Hey everybody, I'm Jaxas: creator of the Salem Smashfests, and also one of the people working on building the Smash Information Database, which will be a quick-access hub for all the technical knowledge discovered for each game in the series.

I'm working with a group of people on gathering as much data about Smash 4 as is humanly possible at this point in time, and we do have the english demos at the moment.
We have confirmed that Stale Move Negation is in the game, and I'm currently trying to figure out the specifics of how it works, but I'm having some difficulties.

If I could get help from the community that would be great, thanks!

Here's some of the information I've gathered so far:

Damage dealt by Link's uncharged Fsmash (1st hit only):

Spoiler

First number is the time (consecutively) the attack lands, 2nd is the change in percent

1. 7
2. 6
3. 6
4. 6
5. 5
6. 4
7. 5
8. 4
9. 4
10. 3
11. 4
12. 4
13. 3
14. 4
15. 4
16. 3
17. 4
18. 4
19. 4
20. 3
21. 4
22. 4
23. 3
24. 4
25. 4
26. 4
27. 3
28. 4
29. 4
30. 3
31. 4
32. 4
33. 3
34. 4
35. 3

I can tell that it is degrading, but I have been unable to find the point at which the Stale Move Queue ends, as well as the exact degradation equation.

Once I get this figured out, we plan to figure out the exact damage dealt by each attack of the characters in the demo. We have a friend with a Capture Card, so we should be able to start on Frame Data as well.

Anyways, at the moment I'll continue looking into this, however I would be very grateful for assistance in this!

--- EDIT ---
Here's the link to the (Work in progress) SmashInformationDatabase Page
Mechanic: Stale Move Negation

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I assume you're calculating the damage numbers by subtracting previous damage from current damage? Something to consider is whether the game calculates decimals but truncates them for the damage display.

 

[Jaxas]

Yeah, that is how I've been doing that. And I know that that's how the game handles it, the problem is I don't know how to figure out what those decimals are; any ideas?

 

[KuroganeHammer]

What's the Smash Information Database?

 

[Jaxas]

It's a (fairly new) project that I'm working on with a few other people; we're trying to create a single database on all the technical data (frame data, knockback directions, exact rates of things like moves that have a trip chance, things like that) of all the smash games so it can be found easily in one single place.
In the mean time we're focusing on getting as much Smash 4 data as we can, and will be adding the previous games to the database once we have a decent amount of information there.

Here's an example of what we have for Link so far, just based off of the demo we got today.
The layout is very lackluster, and much of the knowledge is missing, but the first is simply because we're spending a lot of time gathering information and as for the second we will make the site look nice once the content is there.
As of right now, though, most of the info we have isn't up on the site as we're still checking to make sure it's all accurate.

We plan on having at least fresh percent damage data on each of the 5 demo characters by the middle of next week, hopefully along with frame data for a lot of the characters.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Eeesh. lol wiki

I tried to do something similar but in a far less primitive fashion. My interest died down slightly because one man trying to catalogue an entire series of video games data by himself is... tedious.

I can't imagine you will get very far if you can't even figure stale move negation out yourself though.

I'll look into this after I'm finished doing the things I'm doing.

 

[Meru.]

Does staling affect only damage (as in Melee) or does it also affect knockback (as in Brawl) ?

 

[Tristan_win]

hmmm, I'm envious that a testing group has already formed.

Quick question though, why did you pick a smash attack to test for damage decay? Due to the lack of C stick your results can be inconstant by you holding 'a' even a fraction of a second longer. Because of that I immediately have some doubt about your data, human error is a real problem...

edit: Also I personal think your data is somewhat hard to read. Jtails recently posted a video about decay which I followed up on with posting this.


Damage Decay on Mario fireball

Fresh, 0 Decay 5 damage 4 to 9 (Mario started at 4%)
1 Decay 5 damage 9 to 14
2 Decay 4 damage 14 to 18
3 Decay 4 damage 18 to 22
4 Decay 3 damage 0 to 3
5 Decay 3 damage 3 to 6
6 Decay 3 damage 6 to 9
7 Decay 3 damage 9 to 12
8 Decay 3 damage 12 to 15
9 Decay 2 damage 22 to 24

This is a lot easily to read and understand then just a number for decay and a number for percentage change.

Edit2: I also think it would be easy to test for decay limit by going with the assumption that decay is the same as Brawl and the game can only remember 10 level for each attack. So fully decay a attack until it reaches it's repeating pattern stage and then use 9 different moves, preferably not jabs. If the damage percentage has return to the original value then you have your answer.

1. 7
2. 6
3. 6
4. 6
5. 5
6. 4
7. 5
8. 4
9. 4
10. 3

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I have a lot of respect for the kind of things you're doing to help this community. It sure sounds like it's a lot of work for you guys!

 

[Jaxas]

Eeesh. lol wiki

I tried to do something similar but in a far less primitive fashion. My interest died down slightly because one man trying to catalogue an entire series of video games data by himself is... tedious.

I can't imagine you will get very far if you can't even figure stale move negation out yourself though.

I'll look into this after I'm finished doing the things I'm doing.

Honestly at the moment we haven't worked too much on stale move negation, since we're trying to get the first rounds of basic information down; I figured I'd ask if anyone could help to get it down faster, since I know it's been figured out for the previous games.
As for the wiki, we decided that it'd work pretty well to just start getting info down immediately, and if it becomes a problem we'll be moving to a new site.

Does staling affect only damage (as in Melee) or does it also affect knockback (as in Brawl) ?

I'll be sure to check that today, and let you know.

hmmm, I'm envious that a testing group has already formed.

Quick question though, why did you pick a smash attack to test for damage decay? Due to the lack of C stick your results can be inconstant by you holding 'a' even a fraction of a second longer. Because of that I immediately have some doubt about your data, human error is a real problem...

edit: Also I personal think your data is somewhat hard to read. Jtails recently posted a video about decay which I followed up on with posting this.


Damage Decay on Mario fireball

Fresh, 0 Decay 5 damage 4 to 9 (Mario started at 4%)
1 Decay 5 damage 9 to 14
2 Decay 4 damage 14 to 18
3 Decay 4 damage 18 to 22
4 Decay 3 damage 0 to 3
5 Decay 3 damage 3 to 6
6 Decay 3 damage 6 to 9
7 Decay 3 damage 9 to 12
8 Decay 3 damage 12 to 15
9 Decay 2 damage 22 to 24

This is a lot easily to read and understand then just a number for decay and a number for percentage change.

Edit2: I also think it would be easy to test for decay limit by going with the assumption that decay is the same as Brawl and the game can only remember 10 level for each attack. So fully decay a attack until it reaches it's repeating pattern stage and then use 9 different moves, preferably not jabs. If the damage percentage has return to the original value then you have your answer.

1. 7
2. 6
3. 6
4. 6
5. 5
6. 4
7. 5
8. 4
9. 4
10. 3

Awesome, I'll check out that video as soon as I'm home. As for why I used a Smash attack, it was actually only one of the ones I tested; probably should have posted a different set of data. I was testing the Smash specifically because it was a lot easier to see changes in attack damage with the larger numbers, but I then started testing with his Dair instead (15%). I'll post the new data when I get home, with easier-to-read formatting (I was just jotting numbers down on a notepad while in the 2min time matches before).

I have a lot of respect for the kind of things you're doing to help this community. It sure sounds like it's a lot of work for you guys!

Thanks! Honestly a big part of why we're doing it is because of how much the community has helped us get where we are, coupled with the fact that a lot of the people at our locals are looking to get better but it's sometimes difficult to track down information across the forum.

 

[Dagon97]

its looking really good jaxas!

 

[SonicZeroX]

Do whiffed and blocked attacks still suffer from stale negation?

 

[Tristan_win]

Do whiffed and blocked attacks still suffer from stale negation?

They never have and although I don't know for sure if this hold true in smash4 I'm willing to bet they still don't.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

ok, if you want data on stale move negation, you need HURTY HITBOXES

so

Here's some data for you.

Ganondorf Neutral B:

1. 59
2. 52
3. 47
4. 44
5. 40
6. 37
7. 35
8. 32
9. 31
10. 30
11. 30

So it seems like there's 10 slots on the stale move negation queue this time instead of 9 derp no there's not, i forgot that the first hit doesn't count as a slot in the queue DUH. Also it works like Brawl where if you have something in the queue already, your attack will be stronger

So like this:

..W....... <--- assume the dots are warlock punches and the w is something else.

This above will have your Warlock punch fresher than the order below:

........W.

Edit: This data may be helpful for you. It's Brawl's stale move negation order (Smash 4 will NOT be the same, keep in mind!)

The following is a table containing all possible stale move combinations. There are 9 slots in the queue, totalling 512 possible combinations. 1 means the move occupies the slot, 0 means it does not. Slots to the left are the more recently performed moves.

Spoiler

The queue multiplier for smash 4 seems to look like:

None: 1.06x
1. 0.93x-0.94x
2. 0.84x-0.85x
3. 0.79x-0.80x
4. 0.72x-0.83x
5. 0.67x
6. 0.63x-0.64x
7. 0.58x
8. 0.57x-0.56x
9. 0.55x-0.54x

Please keep in mind that that's just using one move over and over! Like Brawl there will be 512 combinations each with their own move multiplier!

Have fun!

 

[Jaxas]

@ KuroganeHammer
Thanks, that'll be really helpful. Just double checking, but that's Smash 4 Ganon, right?

And thanks for all the help to everyone! We had a tournament today so I didn't get to do as much work as I would've liked, but I plan to have the information on this figured out and uploaded my Monday. I'll be sure to post any further questions in here, as well as a link to the info once everything is figured out.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

actually thinking about it i need to retest pls understand

 

[Jaxas]

actually thinking about it i need to retest pls understand

That's perfectly fine, what was wrong though?

 

[Captain Norris]

So... do we know if Stale Move Negation affects knock-back yet?

 

[Pikabunz]

It does affect knock-back.

I know one thing for sure and that's that fresh moves have 105% power.

 

[Captain Norris]

It does affect knock-back.

well darn. That is what I heard from the E3 demo. i didn't know if anything changed in that regard. hmm

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

I THINK training mode has no stale moves. I've been doing most of my analysis from training mode and can recall no decay. Iirc, it was the same in Brawl.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

That's perfectly fine, what was wrong though?

I used custom move attack increases, which increased warlock punch to some decimal point which threw EVERYTHING off.

How does one go about assisting your little research team?

 

[Jaxas]

I THINK training mode has no stale moves. I've been doing most of my analysis from training mode and can recall no decay. Iirc, it was the same in Brawl.

I may ask you for help in testing a few things in training mode if you don't mind, as I only have the demo to work with.

It does affect knock-back.

I know one thing for sure and that's that fresh moves have 105% power.

Would you mind showing the the raw data for that? Especially the 105% part, I'd like to be able to confirm that myself if possible

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Would you mind showing the the raw data for that? Especially the 105% part, I'd like to be able to confirm that myself if possible

Source: Every Smash game.

 

[Jaxas]

Source: Every Smash game.

I'd still like to confirm that it's unchanged in this game, though that is a solid reason to expect it to be that way.
Also, just for curiosity's sake, does Smash 64 have that as well?

--- Edit ---
I just looked into it a bit, apparently the 1.05x freshness bonus was specific to Brawl (as far as the past games go)


--- Edit #2 ---

I used custom move attack increases, which increased warlock punch to some decimal point which threw EVERYTHING off.

How does one go about assisting your little research team?

At the moment we're communicating through Smashboards and Email. My email is Jaxas.Scarlet@gmail.com, hit me up on there or here on Smashboards; I have all alerts for Smashboards stuff linked there anyways

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Huh you're right.

Anyway I can personally confirm that there is a 1.05x freshness multiplier.

 

[Jaxas]

As far as stale move negation goes, I can confirm that (at this level of testing, I plan on making absolutely certain):

• There are 9 slots in the Stale Move Queue
• The Stale Move Queue resets upon going to Sudden Death (because this is relevant at all... Yay 2min time mode only demo!)
• Your Stale Move Queue resets upon your death [Unconfirmed but extremely likely]

I have to do stuff tomorrow, so I need to head to bed now, but I hope to have this all figured out by the time I go to bed tomorrow.

Thanks for all the help everyone!

 

[#HBC | Ryker]

@Raziek is the one with the copy, not me, so you'll have a hard time getting me able to help as he's not going to be in the same country as me after Monday. I can help when I have the full game.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Some moves in Brawl were not subject to stale move decay, at least as far as % negation is concerned. Have any such moves been found in smash 4?

 

[Meru.]

It does affect knock-back.

Well that sucks.

Spoiler

The queue multiplier for smash 4 seems to look like:

None: 1.06x
1. 0.93x-0.94x
2. 0.84x-0.85x
3. 0.79x-0.80x
4. 0.72x-0.83x
5. 0.67x
6. 0.63x-0.64x
7. 0.58x
8. 0.57x-0.56x
9. 0.55x-0.54x

Is it safe to assume this multiplier applies in the same way to knockback?

 

[Jaxas]

All right, so at the moment these are the things that I'm trying to figure out the answer to:

• How many moves are in the Stale Move Queue? (Answer: 9)
• How much do the moves degrade by?
  • By number of instances in the queue
  • By location in the queue
• Is there a freshness bonus? (Likely)
• Does staling only affect damage or does it also affect knockback? (Likely affects both, but until I have a 2nd person I can't test this, as CPUs may DI different ways/etc)
  • If so, how does it affect it?
• Do whiffed attacks suffer from Stale Move Negation?
• Do blocked attacks suffer from Stale Move Negation?
  
• Are there moves that are not subject to Stale Move Decay? (I won't be able to test this for any character not in the demo)

Can anyone think of any questions I'm missing?

--- Edit ---
Testing now!

 

[Jaxas]

Well that sucks.



Is it safe to assume this multiplier applies in the same way to knockback?

Where exactly did you get that image from? Also, which game is that for?

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Is it safe to assume this multiplier applies in the same way to knockback?

Damage that a move does affects knockback yes.

Where exactly did you get that image from? Also, which game is that for?

You should be asking me that question seeing as I originally posted it for you.

 

[Jaxas]

Damage that a move does affects knockback yes.



You should be asking me that question seeing as I originally posted it for you.

Oh wow, apparently I'm a fool; I scrolled up and clicked reply as soon as I found what I was looking for.
Sorry about that, but where did you get that image from (did you make it yourself?) and what game is that for?

 

[KuroganeHammer]

It's for Brawl

 

[Jaxas]

It's for Brawl

I figured it was, and even still that'll be really helpful for putting together the Stale Move Negation page for Brawl when I get there.

Anyways, I'm still working on gathering data at the moment; I never realized just how much of a hindrance that 2min time limit could be, though...
Not too bad, but it's slow going; especially with only CPU opponents. I'll report back my findings in a bit, though.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Let me fill you in on a little secret

Knockback Formula is the same as Brawl

I don't see any reason why the stale move queue will be any different

 

[Jaxas]

Let me fill you in on a little secret

Knockback Formula is the same as Brawl

I don't see any reason why the stale move queue will be any different

It appears to all be lining up so far, which is great because that should save a lot of time. I'm wanting to make absolutely certain about everything I mark as fact though, if only due to the number of things that I've seen wrong that are 'common knowledge' here in the past. I'm still going to keep testing, but if enough of it lines up then I'm marking it as the same as Brawl's.

Also, who figured out the exact knockback formula for Smash 4? I would have figured that we wouldn't have enough information for that, as we don't really have much as far as Homebrew on the 3DS to extract raw data. If someone has gathered all the info that (I assume) would be needed to figure that out, then that would make my job a lot easier.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Also, who figured out the exact knockback formula for Smash 4?

me

 

[Jaxas]

me

Mind sending me the info?


--- EDIT ---
Also, I saw your post here and figured I'd ask, how did you figure out the exact damage of the middle hits of Usmash down to 4 decimal places?


--- EDIT #2 ---
I have now confirmed that it is incredibly difficult to check if the degradation is the same as Melee/Brawl with only a single 3DS, as the rounding makes gathering correct data difficult. I'll be able to test this tomorrow with friends, though, and from what I have found it's extremely likely that it is the same.