Meta Smooth Lander and Heavy Gravity (SLHG)

[Allec145]

Have you guys already looked into sonics side special hammer spin dash? For the reason of it helping him being able to recover greatly compared to how he just is? Same with diddy kong? I know link has a slight one but one I can easily pass by but sonic and diddy recover pretty bad and I think both of there side specials can help out allot. Sorry if I'm beating a dead horse I don't know if you all have discussed this yet?

 

[ZADD]

Sure, play with them who cares.

But they really diminish competitiveness in a tournament, and add unnecessary time for setup. One of the biggest selling points for SLHG tournaments is that they are in fact very quick to set up... Logistics wise, I don't feel the need for customs at all. You can **** **** up with any character without customs, so its pretty unnecessary unless you are playing SLHG like it's Vanilla...

 

[SaturnFrost]

I'm personally not against giving customs where they are needed. But way back our group couldn't come to a conclusion and settled on an all or nothing slhg.

I recently tried to bring the topic back to light but apparently the fear of pandoras box is still among us where we can't let one thing out without the whole zoo flooding out.

Also sonic and Diddy both have side B>Jump Up B which are fine as recoveries.

I agree that the fast setup is a good selling point as well.

 

[Muro]

Have you guys already looked into sonics side special

he has an AT which helps him recover better: spinshot.

Personally I don't like customs, but no one can tell you what you like so if you do like them go for it.

 

[BlueFury]

Yea as saturn said sonic and diddy have the side b (jump at the height of the recovery then up b) method. Honestly sonic and diddy are pretty devastating on stage tbh so it kind of balances them out. Every character gain or lost something for a greater benefit even Sheik ( Her side b is weighed down so it isn't as safe).

Customs are still debatable right now so idk some are for some are against, makes me no difference SLHG is fun regardless.

*sidenote*

you guys heard of this glitch it seems pretty sick worth looking at.

 

[VeggieSteel]

Hey guys, long time, no see! Glad to see you're still promoting SLHG.

After the online glitch was removed, I haven't been playing much; I don't have the time to get involved with my local scene, and vanilla smash4 doesn't do much for me anymore. If we can ever get a mod to play special smash online, I would love to get involved with SLHG again, I think it still has huge untapped potential to improve Smash4. But it looks like our problems are the same as always, exposure and accessibility. Online would help massively with both, and I'm still so bummed that Nintendo removed it for what seems like no reason.

Is anyone running local tournaments nowadays?

 

[Macchiato]

i can't help but wonder. How does Zelda do here?

 

[BlueFury]

i can't help but wonder. How does Zelda do here?

My personal opinion she's more of a threat here but I don't want to seem biased towards this mode. Truthfully her aerials can pressure on shield more and with little to no lag to them that aids her quite a bit. There's more technical **** I could say but I think you should try her out and see how she feels to you, that way you know first-hand. Either way I hope you try and like SLHG and keep playing.

 

[Hyper_Kirby]

A little late so this comes off as off-topic, but when is hitstun, Diddy Kong can jump and up b. This makes his up b rise as he's charging and it goes higher then a typical jump. Only downside is that this ONLY works when he's in hitstun and has a jump. This is also great for surviving spikes.

 

[Muro]

The more I play MK the more I like him, every move has its use. Utilt, Dtilt, Uair, Dair, Nair, Down throw, Dash attack and up-B are all sooo good for one reason or another (mostly how well they all link into each other). You can sometimes finish combos with tornado, a move that deals >20%, is that from the moon launcher? (edit: just tested, it's the normal damage)

Only thing meh about him are his smashes.

 

[Aunt Jemima]

i can't help but wonder. How does Zelda do here?

much more reward on hit (shff nair > grab/dtilt, insane dthrow combos,etc.), super good kill confirms (dthrow > lighting kicks, uthrow > uair, dtilt > everything, etc.), much better neutral because better short hop/aerials & good dance trot, blah blah blah

also she has stupid combos with uthrow/dthrow > utilt stuff at low %s lol

 

[ZADD]

An old Luigi main I knew started messing with SLHG luigi (he only played Melee before), and he pulled off some pretty sweet stuff.

U-tilt > N-air > Jab Jab > Up-B is pretty nasty and difficult to escape, especially for fast-fallers. It can also kill floaties relatively early. D-throw > D-air is near inescapable for fast-fallers on the ledge, the only way out is to DI inward and hope Luigi doesn't B-air the **** out of you...

I have a few replays, I'll see if I can get em uploaded sometime soon.

Edit: I've recently been putting time into Greninja and I see a hell of a lot of potential, similar to Meta Knight. He has near-perfect pivot control for spacing, can reliably combo 30-60% from a Throw, U-tilt, or D-tilt, AND has unbelievable edge-guarding tools with his Up-B, B-air and Neutral B. He takes quite a bit of time to get used to, (timing of aerials, control of pivots, overall footsies etc.) but once mastered I could see him go toe-to-toe with the Top 5.
Some cool SLHG exclusives for :

• SHFF F-air > F-smash (This can be done somewhat rapidly for neutral coverage)
• D-tilt > SHFF F-air > SHFF F-air (Low %'s)
• U-throw > FF U-air > U-tilt > FF U-air > F-smash (Mid %'s)
• U-tilt > SHFF U-air > U-tilt > U-smash (Low %'s)
• B-throw > SHFF B-air > SHFF B-air
• F-tilt > Tech Chase
• D-throw > F-air (Kill setup, can be DI'd)

There's obviously a lot more if you choose to mess around with Greninja's incredible pivot game, these are just the basics.

 

[ArtfulHobbes]

I can agree with you there. I played a few games with my friend the other day as he wanted to try out Palutena, and Greninja is becoming one of my favourite characters to play in this mode.

His comboes out of throws are really solid, he can tech chase and chain things together very well because of his speed, he has good kill power and edgeguarding ability, and hes so much fun to play. His one true weakness is recovery.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

This might be a bit of an odd comparison, but SLHG Greninja feels a lot like Melee Falco to me, more than the actual space animals in this game. You can kind of pseudo-pillar with uthrow/utilt into fast-fall uair to pull people down, has a pretty fantastic projectile, and his very vertical oriented movement definitely calls back to Falco a bit. Though I haven't played around with him that much.

 

[ZADD]

This might be a bit of an odd comparison, but SLHG Greninja feels a lot like Melee Falco to me ...pseudo-pillar with uthrow/utilt into fast-fall uair to pull people down, has a pretty fantastic projectile, and his very vertical oriented movement definitely calls back to Falco a bit. .

As a Melee Flaco main I 100% with you there. In fact, Iv been saying to my friends that SLHG Greninja is similar to Melee Flaco for months now, I'm glad you feel the same. Gotta say, the air stall on Greninja's projectile is a welcome addition.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

If anyone is planning on trying this stuff out, you may be out of luck right now. The 3DS did recently receive a new update (10.5.0-30), which makes the browserhax exploit more unstable; it's more prone to failing now than in the older system versions.

As a result, those who want to extract their Smash 3DS game data and modify their equipment supply may not be able to do so right now; I was only able to get the exploit to work once, but it was obviously a fluke, as all of my other attempts had failed.

Edit: Got the exploit to work a second time, but again, it's more prone to failing now than a few weeks ago.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

Luckily the Wii U Challenge Board method is tried and true through several game updates. Even if we can't access online, it's at least feasible to set things up for local play in a short period of time.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Luckily the Wii U Challenge Board method is tried and true through several game updates. Even if we can't access online, it's at least feasible to set things up for local play in a short period of time.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you wanted to implement stronger Smooth Lander equipment (especially if they're character-specific), you might have a difficult time getting the browserhax exploit to work with the newest system update in place.

And just so that players are aware, if you want to make the best possible Smooth Lander equipment that's legal by in-game standards, the following is what's allowed...

• Character-specific
  • +52, -42
• Brawn Badge, Protection Badge, Agility Badge
  • +37, -30

Just make sure that their range value is set to 1, or else they won't pass the legal checker when being copied onto Smash Wii U.

Also, in regards to the Moon Launcher and Item Hitter bonus effects that are mentioned on the primary post, the best possible legal stats for them are as follows...

• Moon Launcher
  • Character-specific
    • +56, -42
  • Brawn Badge, Protection Badge, Agility Badge
    • +40, -30
• Item Hitter
  • Character-specific
    • +50, -42
  • Brawn Badge, Protection Badge, Agility Badge
    • +36, -30

 

[Muro]

.

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here. Stronger smooth lander? character specific what? Why are you trying to import badges from the 3DS?

The badges we want are easy to get, we hammer the challenge board and that's it. Maybe I didn't understand your post right.

 

[JesterJaded]

So um. How devastating is SLHG Cloud? I imagine there are LB and spike confirms galore along with Nair / Fair / Uair being even more frustrating to deal with, but being even more helpless offstage.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here. Stronger smooth lander? character specific what? Why are you trying to import badges from the 3DS?

The badges we want are easy to get, we hammer the challenge board and that's it. Maybe I didn't understand your post right.

What I've stated is for those who want better stats for their Smooth Lander, Moon Launcher, and Item Hitter equipment. Because the equipment that you receive from challenges always have fixed stats, their stat spreads are often not good.

 

[JCOnyx]

Since the topic of customs was brought up again not too long ago, I swore there was some very serious discussion of changing Mega Man's UpB to prevent stalling and his infinite recovery. And changing Duck Hunt's UpB if I recall, but those were the only 2 moves I remember being brought up the most.

What ended up happening to that discussion?

 

[Muro]

What I've stated is for those who want better stats for their Smooth Lander, Moon Launcher, and Item Hitter equipment. Because the equipment that you receive from challenges always have fixed stats, their stat spreads are often not good.

I get what you're saying but your wording is still weird and confusing. Why would you say "for their Smooth Lander, Moon Launcher, and Item Hitter equipment" and then "their stat spreads are often not good" as if the stats are not always the same for that set? You could've just said the 3ds method is good to get any equipment with any stats.

Since the topic of customs was brought up again not too long ago, I swore there was some very serious discussion of changing Mega Man's UpB to prevent stalling and his infinite recovery. And changing Duck Hunt's UpB if I recall, but those were the only 2 moves I remember being brought up the most.

What ended up happening to that discussion?

well, exactly that. We more or less agreed to replace Mega Man's up B with the one in the challenge board, and duck hunt's with the one which gives him most vertical distance. But that's only discussing hypothetical tournament rules, you just play whatever and have fun.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

I get what you're saying but your wording is still weird and confusing. Why would you say "for their Smooth Lander, Moon Launcher, and Item Hitter equipment" and then "their stat spreads are often not good" as if the stats are not always the same for that set? You could've just said the 3ds method is good to get any equipment with any stats.

I guess what I mean is that you can always use a Smash 3DS save editor to compose Smooth Lander equipment that has better stat values (stronger stat boosts, and weaker stat drops) than what you'd get from the Smooth Lander Brawn Badge that you're given after completing Smash Wii U's "Collect all of the special moves." challenge.

 

[blargh257]

So um. How devastating is SLHG Cloud? I imagine there are LB and spike confirms galore along with Nair / Fair / Uair being even more frustrating to deal with, but being even more helpless offstage.

He's good. Nair dtilt is really stupid.

Since we all fiddle with things, I found a thing that I think is really cool. It's build 3 of SLHG without the HG and just played in normal smash. That's the Smooth Lander Brawn Badge and Item Hitter Agility Badge with the standard Protection Badge. It may not sound that different but it opens up a lot of things that wouldn't normally be possible. That +19 speed allows for a lot more chasing with higher jumps and better movement but is still manageable and is definitely very close to vanilla. As such, this thing (which I like to call Wild Animal Craziness because Fantastic Mr. Fox is a great movie and I like references but that's absurd so call it whatever) is a lot less transformative than SLHG, but that might be a good thing if you're looking for wider appeal. I know I'll be using this as a thing that my friends can still handle well that still allows me to be creative, investigative, and a bit more combo-heavy.
Here are some things that can be done in that engine that to my knowledge either cannot be done in vanilla or are much harder.
: nair nair, dair up tilt, dair up smash
: fair fair, bair fair. Fair dair can go off pretty easily but has a pretty large escape window.
: dair grab
: dtilt up air up air up b is a kill on ROB at 90 because of higher jumps
: bair nair, nair knee, double bair offstage and maybe with RAR

These are just a few things I've found in the past few days. Try it out if you feel like fast movement without the heavy weight.

 

[ZADD]

What I've stated is for those who want better stats for their Smooth Lander, Moon Launcher, and Item Hitter equipment. Because the equipment that you receive from challenges always have fixed stats, their stat spreads are often not good.

The stat spreads are fine and are all < 5. Many people have suggested using browserhax and save modding to achieve the "perfect" SLHG loadout, but TBH the one we get In-game is completely fine and pretty much perfect as it is.

I believe suggestions like this seriously put off new players. Most of them don't care enough at all to take steps and hack their own equipment, they just need a simple way to access the content, and to know that they aren't the only ones in the world that appreciate it.

I dont even know what these specific stat changes would do to SLHG, or if they would even be noticeable at all. If you could provide some reasoning for why these stat changes are so desperately needed, I would appreciate it. Otherwise it just seems like a waste of time. Put more time into testing within SLHG, not outside it. Maybe do a character analysis, or combo boost analysis.

That's the real way to help SLHG.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

ZADD : I guess in a way, having higher stat values could make certain fighters operate a bit better, but do as you wish.

 

[BlueFury]

Mario & Sonic Guy :

I think I understand what your trying to do a little but I think until we get stable and actually have some exposure on a tourney level we will only confuse new people coming in like Zadd stated. For now I say keep testing/experimenting for now you, SAHunter and blargh too are kind of doing the same thing, you guys should team up or something and fully test this out. It sounds cool and all being able to have something like hard breaker with balanced stats but let's get SLHG out there and going first then we can implement you guys stuff in to possibly further perfect or add to Smooth Gravity.

Keep doing your thing though you what I'm saying it sounds good btw.

 

[ZADD]

If anything, I would just make a 3DS save that perfectly mimics the challenge board badges.

That way, I could just upload it to any console to avoid wasting hammers. It would make tournies a breeze.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Alternatively, making Smooth Lander equipment that completely balances all stats to 0 would work.

Smooth Lander Brawn Badge: +23, -23
Smooth Lander Protection Badge: +23, -23
Smooth Lander Agility Badge: +23, -23

Three Smooth Landers cut landing lag in half (0.5x), which could make things more interesting if you want to expand the SLHG rules further.

 

[ZADD]

Still mising Moon launcher, which is essential to offset the wackiness of Heavy Gravity. Also going through all the work of editing a 3DS save would not be worth the 3-4 difference in stats, the differences would be unnoticable in-game.

Edit: Regular smash with 3 smooth lander badges would be unbelievably unbalanced. That's pretty much a 80% decrease in landing lag, compared to SLHG's 33%. Characters like Bowser, Shulk, Yoshi, and Dedede would be extremely OP, while Sheik would pretty much be the worst character.

We use the build from the challenge board for 2 real reasons...

-Accessibility, Convenience, and simple to set up.
-This build feels very natural, and maintains most of the flow of Vanilla Smash with a slight boost of tempo. Characters function the same damage wise (other than up moves), and players can easily Transition to SLHG.

 

[JesterJaded]

So I've been looking into SLHG ever since I heard about it, and I must admit it looks like a heck of a lot of fun; the sheer amount of wonky combos you can do and the increased pace of the game due to Smooth Lander is just all-around enjoyable to both watch and play. I know SLHG is its own thing, but seeing those devastating combos gives me Melee and PM levels of hype. Offstage being overall more dangerous of a disadvantaged state is also something that appeals to me, since most of the time I feel like my opponent's come back onstage for free, and I prefer to gimp rather than camp the ledge. Don't get me wrong, I love vanilla, but these are aspects I appreciated more in previous Smash games.

I do have some concerns though, even if having fun with the changed physics is the be-all end-all of me playing SLHG and will likely lead me to introduce it to my local scene: what are everyone's opinions on the balance of SLHG / how far is the gap between the tiers compared to Vanilla? Can low-tier / mid-tier characters realistically compete with those higher up on the ladder than, say, vanilla Jigglypuff / Little Mac / Palutena / Zelda / Link, etc. do against characters like vanilla Diddy, MK, ZSS, and Sheik? To me, I see a lot of vanilla Smash's roster to be plagued with unsafe / few options and little combo potential / practical kill confirms, whereas the top 20 have these in abundance.

So I guess what I'm specifically asking is, does giving the majority of the cast safer aerials and more combos / kill confirms / edgeguarding options improve vanilla's balance?

 

[ZADD]

SLHG barely affects the top-tiers, as most of them are known for having safe approaches. The ones who benefit the most are Mid-high tiers. (Meta Knight, Greninja, Cpt. Falcon, Ike, Marth etc.)

The rest of the cast however, especially heavies, also have benefits.. Samus for example, gets access to safe aerials and a devastating combo game. Meta Knight no longer has to play patiently, he can play as aggressive as he wants. Marth can Short-hop F-air with little to no worry, and link together F-airs like it's nobody's business.

All in all, SLHG is a huge improvement to overall roster balance. It greatly boosts low-tiers, and makes every game about Skill-level, as oposed to just match-up knowledge (aka vanilla Sm4sh). Any character can win an SLHG match-up if you're good enough, some match-ups are doomed in Vanilla no matter how good you are.

SLHG favors Technical Ability (Tech-chases, fast-falls, footstools) over Discipline/Knowledge (Reading DI, Abusing Shield, Hard Reads), similar to Melee, PM, and 64.

 

[KeithTheGeek]

Jigglypuff becomes a lot better in SLHG, but she seems to lose pretty hard to fast disjoints. So basically Cloud lol. But if you get him off stage....

She's still overall worse than in Melee because Rest took a big hit in this game and the lack of ledge-hogging takes away some of her options, but compared to vanilla she's infinitely better. Really, I feel that way about most of the cast...the question is who benefits the most of the changed mechanics. The answer is probably Marth.

Btw people have been looking at that Bayonetta and Corrin footage and it sounds like Marth is getting some damage buffs. He might become that much more dangerous in SLHG.

 

[Muro]

the biggest changes as far as the top tiers go should be sonic and diddy.

 

[JesterJaded]

the biggest changes as far as the top tiers go should be sonic and diddy.

But that doesn't necessarily cripple them, does it? Diddy in particular has a fantastic neutral and disadvantage, so I imagine he'd be similar to vanilla Cloud and Ness where his other strengths outshine his weak recovery.

Another thing I wanted to ask: it pleased me to see that the nature of heavy gravity forces you to rack up damage before you can realistically seal the stock with a single combo, but are there any cringe-worthy easy mode combos that don't require much skill compared to the rest of the cast? I'm mostly asking because I'm not altogether fond of vanilla Sheik's Fair > Fair > Fair > Fair or ZSS and MK's ladder combos when there are so few inputs involved.

 

[Muro]

But that doesn't necessarily cripple them, does it? Diddy in particular has a fantastic neutral and disadvantage, so I imagine he'd be similar to vanilla Cloud and Ness where his other strengths outshine his weak recovery.

I don't think so, but I think they're both relegated to mid tier though.

Another thing I wanted to ask: it pleased me to see that the nature of heavy gravity forces you to rack up damage before you can realistically seal the stock with a single combo, but are there any cringe-worthy easy mode combos that don't require much skill compared to the rest of the cast? I'm mostly asking because I'm not altogether fond of vanilla Sheik's Fair > Fair > Fair > Fair or ZSS and MK's ladder combos when there are so few inputs involved.

There are some, but there are a lot more situations where you can tech out of things. Also, although a lot combos are guaranteed, you can make it harder to get by using different DI's, which makes the combo game a lot more fun and interactive.

edit: some of the u-tilts are kinda dumb though, especially against heavy characters with big frames.

 

[BlueFury]

I've been wondering for a while, why do some people feel the heavy gravity in SLHG is too heavy? Honestly it feels pretty normal to me, what do you guys think? Do you think they judge before trying it or are they just in to air battle style of vanilla? Is it some other reasons or are they really close-minded when trying something new?

 

[blargh257]

But that doesn't necessarily cripple them, does it? Diddy in particular has a fantastic neutral and disadvantage, so I imagine he'd be similar to vanilla Cloud and Ness where his other strengths outshine his weak recovery.

Another thing I wanted to ask: it pleased me to see that the nature of heavy gravity forces you to rack up damage before you can realistically seal the stock with a single combo, but are there any cringe-worthy easy mode combos that don't require much skill compared to the rest of the cast? I'm mostly asking because I'm not altogether fond of vanilla Sheik's Fair > Fair > Fair > Fair or ZSS and MK's ladder combos when there are so few inputs involved.

Sheik fairplane still works. The ladders don't until very late because SLHG is generally more grounded.

 

[JesterJaded]

Sheik fairplane still works. The ladders don't until very late because SLHG is generally more grounded.

Well. Two out of three is good enough I guess.

Since Pikachu has kill confirms now (or I assume she does), does that put her on par with Sheik?