Vectoring: The replacement to Directional Influence in Smash 4

[Fly_Amanita]

Okay, so it just strangely maps a circle to a square, more or less.

 

[Shadow the Past]

So what are we calling to call "Good DI" now? Good Vectoring? Good VI? (Vectorial Influence?)

These are the hard hitting questions man.

 

[ミスティック Speed]

I honestly like this more then DI. Its way more easy to understand and master. While it may require "less skill"...that doesn't mean its necessarily a bad thing.
Its....simplistic.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

@ Strong Badam : While admittedly significantly more intuitive to a newbie player than DI is, I'm not sure this will be good for the game by any means. Hopefully it doesn't make combos escapable too early, because that would actually seriously suck for the new game's meta. At the very least, we shouldn't end up back to Brawl levels of unsafe-on-hit moves and similar shenanigans, because Smash 4's hitstun does not work that way.

 

[Bl00dyBizkitz]

It's pretty easy to understand, but confusing because of how used to DI people already are. You're already being "vectored" when you're hit by G&W's Up Smash, but you as the player can input in your own vector to change the equation.

 

[Bladeviper]

@ Strong Badam : While admittedly significantly more intuitive to a newbie player than DI is, I'm not sure this will be good for the game by any means. Hopefully it doesn't make combos escapable too early, because that would actually seriously suck for the new game's meta. At the very least, we shouldn't end up back to Brawl levels of unsafe-on-hit moves and similar shenanigans, because Smash 4's hitstun does not work that way.

i dont think it will get rid of all combos just some of the ones that are already iffy to hit if people di right become even harder to hit

 

[Strong Badam]

So could this be related to why Smash DI isn't nearly as strong in this game; instead of SDI it's actually just very small amounts of 'Vectoring' (a good name for description but I doubt it'll stick too well)?

I think SDI is in the game as a separate mechanic (this becomes clear when SDIing Smart Bombs), but they used SDI multipliers extremely liberally so moves that are supposed to combo (jab combos, multihit moves like drill uairs, etc.) do so.

 

[TimeSmash]

@ Strong Badam : While admittedly significantly more intuitive to a newbie player than DI is, I'm not sure this will be good for the game by any means. Hopefully it doesn't make combos escapable too early, because that would actually seriously suck for the new game's meta. At the very least, we shouldn't end up back to Brawl levels of unsafe-on-hit moves and similar shenanigans, because Smash 4's hitstun does not work that way.

He did say on page 1 that he didn't exactly like and it probably wouldn't be good for the game, but he did want the information known. I agree with you on your reasoning though

 

[InfinityCollision]

it needs more testing but from the numbers in the op it seems it would only save you once or twice at most for kill moves

That's still longer in a game that's already drawing criticism for high % kills, and it'll increase the time it takes to reach kill % as well since you can potentially vector out of combos.

 

[Renji64]

@ Strong Badam : While admittedly significantly more intuitive to a newbie player than DI is, I'm not sure this will be good for the game by any means. Hopefully it doesn't make combos escapable too early, because that would actually seriously suck for the new game's meta. At the very least, we shouldn't end up back to Brawl levels of unsafe-on-hit moves and similar shenanigans, because Smash 4's hitstun does not work that way.

It all comes back full circle.

 

[KishPrime]

Good work buddy.

 

[Strong Badam]

I don't have an issue with the mechanic in general, but the cast is not designed with it in mind, at least not in my experience. Attacks don't kill until EXTREMELY late when vectored properly, and throws don't either. The combo game will likely be similar to Brawls, where it's mostly low percent moves that don't send you far at all (Sheik Ftilt kinda things) that combo. I'm at least glad that chaingrabs are gone though, but it overall means the punishment game is weaker.
Punishing landing is easier in this game, though, because of AD landlag. That's good IMO.

 

[DMG]

V3ctorman must be REALLY pleased!

In other news, trash talking someone on their vectoring is going to feel weird. What are we gonna say, West Coast Vectoring? Doesn't have the same ring as DI: someone work on catchy names and trash talk for bad vectors

 

[Krynxe]

Okay, so it just strangely maps a circle to a square, more or less.

Yes, it did that in brawl but not melee. I brought up this point previously, that a diagonal input on circle pad should theoretically create a diagonal vector that, when broken down into its x and y components, should effect both components equally with a force that's sin(45) times the force of the vector. This is untrue, however, as it acts like a square and effects both the x and y directions with the entire force separately. Brawl showed similar trends when DIing diagonal knockback moves, so it doesn't come as a surprise

 

[Jaxas]

I think SDI is in the game as a separate mechanic (this becomes clear when SDIing Smart Bombs), but they used SDI multipliers extremely liberally so moves that are supposed to combo (jab combos, multihit moves like drill uairs, etc.) do so.

All right, thanks

 

[Thani]

I only heard this from elsewhere, so pardon if I am mistaken, but doesn't Smash officially name this in one of the Tips as Hitstun Shuffling?

 

[Bladeviper]

does this make multi hit moves bad again? i hope not lol

 

[Strong Badam]

I only heard this from elsewhere, so pardon if I am mistaken, but doesn't Smash officially name this in one of the Tips as Hitstun Shuffling?

That's how it describes shield SDI.

EDIT: oh, it looks like it applies to regular hits too.

 

[ミスティック Speed]

I only heard this from elsewhere, so pardon if I am mistaken, but doesn't Smash officially name this in one of the Tips as Hitstun Shuffling?

OMG!!! I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT THIS!!!
It actually does! I saw it while scrolling and forgot to mention it! This technique already has an official name to it!!

 

[LancerStaff]

This could be either be very good, or very bad. I'll wait for my final judgement, but what I like is that you can use it in a more gut reaction type way. Rather then thinking about which way to press, it's just closer or farther depending on the situation.

Really, somebody has to get to work on low % combos.

 

[Sethlon]

i hope this does not make combos not work at lower percents now :/

Its definitely making some follow ups not work, but more around the mid percents than low. Sheik dthrow -> fair still works till around 30, but after that you can vector up over the fair/uair.

 

[chipz]

I'm going to call it DI.

pretty much
its still directional influence

 

[Mythra]

This is going to increase player survival rate A LOT, I saw many gameplay videos now and some players resist until 160-180%; some people say that is because the farther Blast Lines (they may also be right actually) but what if the increased survival rate seen is because some people managed to Vector unconsciously? A common reflex is to move the control in the opposite direction when your character is sent flying.

 

[TimeSmash]

As an aside, if the technique is controversial enough, we do have hopes for it being patched.

 

[Bladeviper]

Its definitely making some follow ups not work, but more around the mid percents than low. Sheik dthrow -> fair still works till around 30, but after that you can vector up over the fair/uair.

at least some still work, i was just worried it negated all of them

This is going to increase player survival rate A LOT, I saw many gameplay videos now and some players resist until 160-180%; some people say that is because the farther Blast Lines (they may also be right actually) but what if the increased survival rate seen is because some people managed to Vector unconsciously? A common reflex is to move the control in the opposite direction when your character is sent flying.

if that was the case then we would not see people live any longer because vectoring was already making them live as long as possible

 

[~Radiance~]

Thanks for writing this SB Sempai. Im sad that this means we can escape combos because now those long matches will just take even longer. Cool to see that DI is different now, but sad that its gonna mean you can escape from tons of stuff.

 

[Strong Badam]

Can't tell if this is describing Vectoring or SDI.

 

[Bladeviper]

Thanks for writing this SB Sempai. Im sad that this means we can escape combos because now those long matches will just take even longer. Cool to see that DI is different now, but sad that its gonna mean you can escape from tons of stuff.

to be fair they are not that much longer than before, if they are at all, at the higher levels of play right now according to the tournament data we have.

 

[2fast]

Okay let me get this straight. With DI you can influence the direction you get sent in which people would normally aim for one of the corners in SSBB but you said throw DI out of the window. Does that mean DI no longer exists at all in SSB4 and all you can do is Vectoring (or Hitstun Shuffling for the official game terminology)?? Or can you quickly DI toward a corner then proceed to vector from there??

 

[M@v]

One thing I'm confused on. Say I get hit by a move that will send me to the left. Is this "vector value" determined the instant I'm hit? Or can my input influence it at any time? Example, say the value of the hit is 100. I hit the the stick right .2-.5 seconds after i start flying. Will the value still be 100? Or will be 100 until I input, then immediately drop to 80? If that makes sense.

 

[TimeSmash]

If we're all asking questions, haha, I'd like mine to be answered as well.

From the previous page: To elaborate using the flying to the left example, visually, if I used down-right while flying left.

<------------

Normal, flying to the left trajectory.

<---------

Inputting vectoring directly to the right, Distance is reduced.

___---
<----

Using vectoring down-right, reducing distance and also adding a slight downwards angle to travelled trajectory. How does the down vector effect distance, though? Does it also reduce distance??

 

[Tristan_win]

Throws that would normally combo well into the 80s against many characters such as Sheik's Dthrow, Rob's Dthrow, etc. become purely positional throws quite early in a stock if you hold upward. Moves that would otherwise kill you off the top, don't. If for some reason you'd like to die earlier off the top, this is the first smash game to allow you to do so
.

I'm sorry but you mention Sheik, do you have data to back up this claim? If you don't I almost want to say your fear mongering as this new method of effecting your knock back does nothing to your stun, only distance and you can't say for sure if Sheik or ROB would or wouldn't be able to follow it up without first testing it. Your theory is sound but by calling Sheik and Rob throws nothing more then positional throws now is pretty extreme.

You give us that jiggly puff can survive 5% more with this and even have a video but without video proof just showing how much of a distance boost/decrease this actually amounts to it becomes pretty hard to swallow.

Edit: Worst yet the entry level to retest your claim is currently very high as it requires you to own two 3ds and 2 limited addition demos at the bare minimum or 2 Japanese 3ds and two copies of Japanese smash4 so I can't reconfirm your findings

 

[Strong Badam]

Trajectory DI does not exist as a separate mechanic to vectoring in Smash 4. As the topic title says, this is a replacement.

To the above: I was vectoring vs Denti's sheik before I left. While he would be able to combo D-Throw -> Uair for a good while against others (who were trying to DI left/right like in other games), I would just hold up and get out by ~40 with Greninja. Not able to do extensive testing because I no longer have access to the game but I don't really appreciate the accusations you've made here, particularly after the 15+ hours of work I put into the investigation and explanation of this mechanic for this thread.

 

[Epickirby547]

This is now making me not wanna jump into competitive Smash 4. Combos are one of my favorite things about the game and if you take that away with this mechanic it's still fun sure but not nearly as exciting. But like some of you are saying, it might not be beneficial to the game's engine if we go through with this so we don't have to utilize it. I want my hitstun and combo ability thank you very much.

 

[everythingWasBees]

I love the term vectoring for this mechanic. You're just adding two vectors together, one predetermined by the game, and another controlled by player input, to determine the direction and magnitude of the knockback vector. Regardless of the impact that it'll have upon matches, it's seems to be an intuitive mechanic, especially for those unfamiliar with DI.

 

[Seagull Joe]

Posting for further updates.

I do think this is interesting to say the least. This will definitely help me understand how to live longer as Falco now lol.

 

[Bladeviper]

Trajectory DI does not exist as a separate mechanic to vectoring in Smash 4. As the topic title says, this is a replacement.

To the above: I was vectoring vs Denti's sheik before I left. While he would be able to combo D-Throw -> Uair for a good while against others (who were trying to DI left/right like in other games), I would just hold up and get out by ~40 with Greninja. Not able to do extensive testing because I no longer have access to the game but I don't really appreciate the accusations you've made here, particularly after the 15+ hours of work I put into the investigation and explanation of this mechanic for this thread.

so combos are not gone 100% at least thats good

 

[Empyrean]

Nice Find SB. I don't like the sound of this. It's a specially weird change considering DI was a part of the series for quite a while now. I was wondering why some Marths/Lucinas were managing to follow up after dthrow while others couldn't at the same percent.

Very questionable change, imo.

 

[TimeSmash]

I guess speed is a huge factor in this. Much like with DI, if you can predict where or how your opponent can vector, they still are in hitstun, and you may be able to follow up

 

[Player-1]

2 Questions:

1. So do I always want to hold directly against the knockback trajectory to survive kill moves?

2. Can we categorize this as just a different type of DI (after all, the direction you hold is still influencing your trajectory). Am I allowed to call this VI instead? lol.

edit:

three questions actually:

What about multihit moves like jab combos? Should I just hold towards the angle it's already sending me?